The Doctor

Chimalhuacán, Mexico, 1920, on the outskirts of Mexico City. A young girl is in her teens. The other girls start seeing boys. Her mother says no to that. “She will be an instrument of God.” The father said,” Listen to your mother.” The girl listened and went to church with her family but also times alone.

The girls and boys were jealous. They say, “Let us put her to the test!” So they got some coals and carefully heated them over a fire. It was a hot and dusty day.

“These won’t be that hot,” they coaxed her, and she believed them. They waited to see her cry out. She started walking on them, at first tentatively. She kept walking. At the end, they looked at her feet and they were unharmed. 

Some of the teens were awestruck, but some were even more jealous. One girl said, “I’ll send my uncle to her house, he is rough with women.” When he arrived, it was night. He looked at her in her white nightgown.

“Blessed be God forever, peace be with you,” she said. It was said she passed through him and he didn’t know where she went, so he went home.

One day, she showed her mother that her finger was very red and painful. Santiago the butcher had cut off his finger that day. The local doctor saved the finger and sewed it back on.  After a few painful days, he announced the finger took and everyone rejoiced.

 Another time, the girl was found on the floor, moaning and holding her pelvis. That was the day Emilia Hernandez was in labor for 14 hours. She finally delivered. Now the townspeople were suspicious, “Why do these things happen?” they asked.

One day the girl was found in her bed, black and red painful blisters on her body. “Something has happened, we had better check,” said the townspeople. People went around the town and found a house that was on fire. Old Pedro was stuck in his house and he couldn’t get out! They rescued him and in his sick bed he pointed to the girl and said, “Milagro.”

The townspeople started putting flowers on her doorstep. Some of the merchant’s sons were proposing to her. They would take their ill loved ones and ask her to cure them. This went on for some time. They called her “Milagro.”

It was a dark night when there was a knock on the family’s door. The father went cautiously to open it. It was three men dressed in suits looking tired from traveling. “What do you want,” said the parents. They were doctors from Mexico City. The mother and the father talked to them at length. It was late at night when the men left. Her mother was crying, and the father was comforting her.

The girl was told the news and received it with joy. The mother and father spent the time buying her clothes and new notebooks and pens. The townspeople made much of her and threw her parties. A month later she was on the platform with her belongings, destination Mexico City. She was going to train to be a doctor. It was the will of God they said.

©Copyright 2023 by Cecile Bianco

Cecile Bianco

Cecile Bianco has worked in Wisconsin from 1998 to 2003. She has lived in Wisconsin since 2010 and in 2018 moved here permanently. In 2019 she joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Jesus Crucified which is a Secular Institute for people with disabilities. She lives with her Australian shepherd, Timber.