This happened around 1985.
Christine was a young Greek Orthodox mother in her late 20\'s, and a registered nurse. She had two daughters at the time, one was about 6 years old and the other still a toddler. Christine had known for several years that she suffered from multiple sclerosis and her doctors believed that she had had it from about age 15.
The disease had gotten progressively worse, causing numbness in her face and limbs, but it hadn\'t really debilitated or crippled her much yet, until she noticed that it was starting to affect her eyesight. Christine had many people praying for her. Her brother had been a choir director for several years and was learning to be a chanter. She also had a Yiayia (grandmother) who was a very devout Orthodox Christian that knew the lives of the Saints, the writings of the Fathers, read her devotional prayers every day and night, etc. This blessed Yiayia would even sometimes time her cooking by how many times she would have to recite the Lod\'s Prayer for it to be done. Her great uncle was once Bishop of Chania, Crete and her father was a chanter.
However, within about 2 weeks after Christine first noticed her eyesight being affected, she had become totally blind.
Her mother asked their Priest to conduct a special Paraklisis service to the Theotokos on Christine\'s behalf. The entire family attended. Christine\'s brother helped chant the service even though it was emotionally difficult.
A couple of days later, as Christine\'s mom was talking to the Yiayia on the phone, the Yiayia said that that evening, she would say a very special prayer to the Thotokos and to St. Paraskevi, begging them to intercede. St. Paraskevi is a patroness of the blind. Like St. John the Theologian, she was lowered into a vat of boiling oil and came out unscathed. When the local ruler remarked that maybe the oil wasn\'t hot enough, she tossed some in his face, blinding him. She then healed him.
Anyway, the next morning, the Yiayia got an excited phone call from Christine\'s mom, but before the mom could even say anything, Yiayia exclaimed in Greek, \"Christini vlepi\" (\"Christine can see!\") And it was true. She went to bed blind, and woke up seeing.
How did I hear this story? Well, I didn\'t hear it, I lived it. I am Christine\'s only brother.
Yiayia reposed about a year or so later. On her deathbed, she oftentimes would look heavenward and make the sign of the cross. We are convinced that she saw something, an angel, a vision, something--something that was beckoning her to her eternal home.
Christine still suffers from MS, cannot walk much anymore, and mostly has to use a wheelchair. She has a deadbeat ex-husband who walked out on her, doesn\'t pay his child support much, and hasn\'t seen his 3 kids in probably about 12 years or so even though they live in the same town. And the kids all turned out wonderful. The oldest daughter graduated college with honors, the younger daughter was a straight-A student in high school and is now a junior in college, and her youngest, a son, is still in high school and is an altar boy.
Please pray for my sister and her family.
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