AS WORD OF her gift of healing spread, Martha felt as if she and her family were under siege, their home and family life no longer their own. Absolute strangers approached her in the street, prepared to share the most intimate details of their life with her and ask for healing. They came up to her in the stores, outside school, at the local swimming pool, where she was trying to teach Alice the backstroke. Polite, she listened and talked to them, often at pains to point out that their own medical practitioners were far better qualified to help than she was.
Their home was inundated with local and long-distance phone calls; the callers would break down at the sound of her voice, confiding recently disgnosed illnesses and long battles with disease, telling of children who might never grow to adulthood, heavy crosses these unknown soldiers carried. Aware of their fears and quest for hope and answers, Martha listened and spoke softly to them, making it clear that she could not possibly offer healing over the phone and recommending that perhaps they should talk to a counsellor in their area who might be able to help. Some were happy enough simply to have shared their problem, insisting that they had faith in her and believing they felt a little better already; others cursed her for wasting their time. Then there were the other calls, threatening and abusive, ranting and hurling insults, sly voices whispering, making her sick as these so called Bible-quoting, God-fearing Christians shouted and screamed abuse down the line at her and her family.
‘Filthy slut!’
‘Whore of the Devil!’
‘Blasphemer!’
‘Daughter of Satan! Sent to do his work!’
Furious, Mike had got on to the phone company and immediately demanded a new, unlisted number.
‘You might want to give those stupid people the time of day but the kids and I certainly don’t! This is our home,’ he argued, ‘and I’m not having Alice or the rest of the kids subjected to these calls. They don’t need to listen to this kind of stuff.’
Martha, mightily relieved by her husband’s protective action, gladly agreed that their new number was only to be distributed to close family and friends.
Then the letters came. At first a few stuffed in their blue-painted mailbox, bold handwriting, gentle curves, neat work-processed anonymous stationery, floral patterned and scented envelopes, vellum and rich parchment. But following the articles and interviews and word of mouth, more and more letters arrived, till Nolan their mailman was scarcely able to lift them and had to make special delivery arrangements.
‘Wow, look at all the mail you got!’ chorused her kids as they rushed to help her open them as if they were birthday cards. Martha had to stop them when she found Alice kneeling in the breakfast room weeping over a letter from a teenage boy telling her of his mother’s terminal illness.
Mostly she attended to the mail when the rest of them were out of the house or at school. The writers opened their hearts to her as if they were best friends. She pored over the letters, touched by the words and photos, deeply moved by the courage and spirit of those lives affected by the tragedy of illness and pain. One young woman, Teresa, had been out of school for three years, suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, and now almost bed-bound had begun to write poetry; Martha was amazed by the power of her verse. They were the sad letters, and often made her cry, but it was the letters from those devoid of hope, depressed and despondent, dependent on alcohol and drugs and whose very spirit was lost to them, that affected her most. She worried about those men, women and children, knowing they were the ones who needed help, who hungered for the spirit to raise them up and renew them. Some she wrote back to, others she called. Half afraid, she traced the photographic outline of some of their features and tried to transmit healing, asking the Holy Spirit to send them light in their darkness.
Many still came to the house in Mill Street in search of miracles, with immense faith and belief that she, a stranger, could somehow do what others had failed to do and heal them.
Patrick and Mary Rose and Alice were approached too. Martha was angry that her children were being dragged into something that was not their concern. One day Mary Rose broke down when an elderly man asked her to lay her hands on his stomach; the child sobbed hysterically for an hour when she got home.
‘It’s all right, pet, I don’t think he meant anything bad by it, honest I don’t,’ Martha reassured her.
Mike exploded with anger when he got in from work and accused her of being totally irresponsible.
‘Martha, I work darned hard in the Institute all day and I’ll be damned if I come home to these lunatics and crackpots who seem to think they have some God-given right to intrude on our home and family. Let them fuck up their own lives if they want but tell them to keep out of mine!’
‘You think you’re some kind of bloody great earth mother that can heal the world, while the rest of us here at home can suffer! Well I’ll tell you, I’m getting fed up of all these people in our lives. At the rate things are going if we want any privacy we’ll have to sell this house and move somewhere else.’
‘I don’t want to move to another house!’ bawled Alice, tears running down her face.
‘Well, I’m not staying here to have my family threatened by a bunch of weirdos,’ Mike said, storming out of the room.
‘Don’t mind Dad, Alice,’ explained Martha, trying to console her youngest daughter. ‘He doesn’t mean it.’
Mike’s temper and stubbornness had always got the better of him, his tendency to fly off the handle ensuring he never stayed long enough to argue a thing through and listen to anyone else’s perspective. He’d been the exact same when they were dating.
‘But Dad’s right. He’s just trying to protect you and the rest of us,’ added Patrick, taking his father’s side. Martha realized that perhaps she was out of touch with how her children and husband were feeling.
Not wanting any more arguments and feeling stressed as hell she decided to put on her trainers and jacket and go out and get a bit of fresh air, giving all of them time to cool down before she began to prepare dinner. Walking along the familiar neighbourhood paths she had to admit that the faults were as much hers as Mike’s, and that neither of them were being exactly fair to the other. Something they would have to rectify if they wanted a happy marriage.