During my first student years, my hands discovered before I did that I was ill.
One day, they no longer had the strength to ring the cathedral bell.
I had lost weight, dropping below sixty-five kilograms. I had worked hard; I was exhausted. I ended up in the hospital.
The news spread quickly, and I started receiving visitors. Close friends, others less close. Father Vasile Flueraș also came.
Someone brought me unrefined petroleum.
– Two teaspoons. If you drink it, you'll get well.
I drank it.
Every day I received two liters of goat's milk. I was told it had brown hair. The goat, that is.
– If you drink it, you'll get well.
I drank the milk too.
They brought me cured pork fat from the countryside.
– If you eat it, you'll get well.
I ate it.
I listened to everyone.
From that illness, what I remember most clearly is how many people wanted me not to die.
My mother was alone.
My father had died three years prior.
At that time, I knew how hard it was for me. Only much later did I think about what she had gone through.
By God's grace, I recovered.
When I got home, the first thing I did was to take a putty knife.
I scraped off the paint from my room's wall, enough to fit the life-sized face of the Mother of God.
My body had been nourished by everyone else. Within me, the hunger to paint remained.
I took up the paintbrush.
A short while before, my hands could barely pull the bell rope. Now they were painting.
The Mother of God has remained on the wall until today.
After my discharge, Bishop Bartolomeu also gave me his advice.
– You should eat two cartloads of carrots.
Two cartloads.
– If you eat carrots, you'll get well.
Thirty years have passed. Regarding the carrots, I'm still following the advice.
Fr. Ioan Gînscă
Photograph by Noemia Prada