September 18, 2013 7:43 pm
By

Unexplained PresenceThis is not the only time that an unexplained presence turned out to be a Good Samaritan. George was just a young toddler in the war, liv­ing in what remained of the bombed-out Three Cities. His mother was waiting anxiously for the con­voy that was rumoured to be on its way.

Times had been so tough, there was no food at all to be had anywhere. She had given up walking miles just to find an egg. All they seemed to eat were carob pods. They had even had to resort to eating dogs but there were none left.

The whole population seemed to be on the edge of starvation, waiting, waiting, waiting for the con­voy to arrive with salvation. But George’s mother could not bear it any longer. She could not stand to look at her little son, his frame thin and scrawny in spite of the fact that she would go fur days without food to give him all she could find. She fell to her knees and prayed; her hands pressed together, her eyes shut.

When she opened her eyes, a dog appeared at the open front door. His coat seemed to glow with good health. Where had he come from? And in his jaws the dog had a steaming loaf of freshly-baked bread. He laid it at the toddler’s feet and trotted off again. George’s mother is convinced that it was a mir­acle. There were hardly any dogs left around and cer­tainly even the most clever stray would not be able to scrounge enough scraps to keep itself alive and in such good shape. And bread? What dog would find a loaf of bread and give it up? And anyway it was ages since she had seen any­thing like normal flour. Where would the dog have found a whole loaf? George’s mother did not care.

Wherever the gift had come from, she accepted it with the sign of the cross.