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The Reluctant healer – William J Macmillan

I decided I was not prepared to become a social half-caste to relieve either bunions or burns. If Heaven was asking this of me, there had been a slip somewhere in judgement. I could find not the smallest seed of the missionary or the martyr in my make-up. Once more I determined to bury this talent too deeply for the spade of experience to uncover. I resumed my studies with an enthusiasm astonishing to my tutor.

After several weeks I ventured to accept another weekend invitation. The household contained several young people approximately my own age. The parents had spent many years abroad in the British Diplomatic Service. A programme of delightful parties and countryside exploration had been made.

Here I felt I could permanently lay my ghost in the wholesome normality of activity.

For the first two days all went well. I forgot completely that I carried an invisible albatross about my neck.  The delight of my newly found freedom was my undoing. One night at dinner a good many amusing stories had been told. Like a person scraping off the scab to see if the wound is actually healed, I told the story of Mrs. Small and her bunion. It brought the roars of delighted laughter I hoped it would. This was what I needed. Healthy laughter only could bring the immediate past into a sane perspective.

Later in the evening it transpired that one of the guests at the table had not been amused. She was the sister of my hostess.

Some years previously she had suffered from a stroke. The left side of her mouth was drawn slightly. The tear duct of the left eye had been permanently affected. Her eye had to be moistened artificially. Many specialists had been consulted, but no one could give her hope that her condition would improve. At times the eye was agonizingly painful. Both she and her sister remarked that they thought my attitude incomprehensively flippant. If I could perform miracles of healing I was privileged to an extent which should leave me filled with gratitude and awe. They found my story exceptionally distasteful.

I  was far too shy and still suffering too acutely to be able to defend myself against the charge of flippancy. Nor could I even bring myself to tell them of my abortive interviews in London.  But of course I did agree to treat her.

A daily course of treatment over a period of three weeks restored both the mouth and the tear duct to normal.