My Father Was Furious Then A Miracle Happened

I still cannot quite believe it

My father was furious.

I guess money was tight in our house and I did not realize it.

I was a rugby player with very poor eyesight in high school and he had finally relented and bought me some contact lenses.

This was before contact lenses were cheap and readily available.

These were so expensive.

I was ecstatic. I could finally see the ball and I realized for the first time that it was not round but oval. 😂

#Rugby #IAmExaggerating

Our first game was against Kings, those posh prep school boys with silver spoons in their mouths.

I was carving up, charging into things, delighted that for the first time in my life, I could actually “see” the ball.

#ILoveRugby #VisionMakesEverythingEasier

Dad was watching on the sideline grinning from ear to ear, every single time I caught the ball. Like, he was getting a return on his investment.

Then it happened…

When it happened, I had no actual idea…

Suddenly, I became acutely aware that I no longer had a very expensive contact lens in my right eye. 😳

I looked around for it fervently, squinting like an old lady doing her knitting on a muddy rugby field…

GONE.

Dad was no longer smiling this lens had cost him a paycheck or two.

Still, there was a game of rugby to play, so I continued on, squinting badly with one good eye, dropping the ball like it was a piping hot pie.

We played on that field for another 40 minutes. 30 boys becoming men, running up and down with sprigs in their boots. Trashing the field.

#SprigsEqualsCleatsAmericans

The game ended. I don’t remember whether we won or lost. I walked over to Dad, I was crying because I knew how costly the lens was.

He put on a brave face, said some words that were his best attempt at providing comfort, and then told me that he would see me to home.

I could tell that he was disappointed.

#DadsFeelPressureToo.

I don’t know what made me do it.

Dad was a straight-out atheist at the time and I was going through my teenage born-again Christian phase.

But I prayed…

I had hope…

I had not given up…

I told my friend Bruce, let me go out there on that field and look for that lens one more time.

Bruce rolled his eyes. He was an atheist like Dad 😂

#IAmAnAtheistAlsoNow

Maybe it was maths. Sure 30 boys had run over that field for 40 minutes and they could have easily crushed my almost invisible lens inches down into the mud. It could have blown away in the wind.

Yet if it was still there? If that lens lay there on that field somewhere all I had to do was look in the right place.

#TheOddsAreAlwaysInYourFavor

Soon though, the enormity of my task hit me like a gut punch.

The field was massive. The mud was thick. Bruce and his family were yelling at me to hurry up and give up.

I was so upset.

I had seen the look on my father’s face, the disappointment in his dark brown eyes.

If only I could find it.

So in the middle of that muddy rugby field, I fell on my knees and screamed… “God help me find it?”

#ExistentialQuestion

If there is a God does he care enough to help a wealthy middle-class white boy find his contact lens? While millions of children in the world are going without food? How does any of this make sense?

I still cannot believe it…

My father died many years later, still not quite able to comprehend how any of this was possible.

Because kneeling on that rugby field, crying and squinting through my one good eye… I saw the flicker of something shiny and moist underneath a blade of grass.

It was my contact lens.

I grasped it, took it home, washed it well, and wore it for another 18 months.

#Miracles #ICannotExplainIt #NeverGiveUpHope

Much love

G.x

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