A missed miracle

I grew up with the Brady Bunch.Not the Brady Bunch in syndication, the first-time around Bradys. I knew about the lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls. And the man named Brady who was busy with three boys of his own. About the same age as Marcia, Marcia, Marcia ... let’s just say I could identify.But last Easter, my identification shifted from the Brady kids to their mother, Carol Brady.I’m not as sweet as Carol Brady, nor do I wear the hairdo or far-out clothing of Mrs. Brady. No, my identification was more specific. I was the Carol Brady who lost her voice prior to the Christmas concert at her church.Naturally, there were a few primary differences between our circumstances.Unlike Carol, I was not soloing at the concert. And my concert was with my community choir at Easter, not Christmas. You see, I developed a bad cold last spring that settled into a croup-y sounding cough. You know the cough — the kind you hate to be around. The kind that invites people to give you dirty looks for bringing your sickness into their world. I get it. I have given that look on several occasions to other germ-carriers who crossed my path.After week two of the bark, I called the doctor. I had already tried the drug counter at the grocery. Did I have a dry cough or a productive cough, the labels asked. I opted for dry because if the cough had been productive, it would be gone after two weeks, don’t you think?So, I had this drama going on at the same time practice had begun on our community cantata. And while I am not a key performer in the event, I do anchor a second-row seat in the annual event that I take pretty seriously. And last year, I was turning my favorite community gathering into my own personal petri dish with my horrible cough. Not only did my cough sound like an invitation to a hospital ward, my voice dropped from alto to bass. And those were the good days.At rehearsal, the good doctor by whom I stand jokingly called me Typhoid Mary but then suggested some treatment I could try.As I was considering my options I remembered Carol Brady and her laryngitis. “Carol, I feel your pain,” I said to myself.I wondered if my voice would return by our Easter cantata the way Carol Brady’s voice returned for her Christmas solo.Like Carol, I nursed my throat as best I could. I sipped tea with honey and stayed indoors as much as possible.Of course, I did draw the line at putting a towel around my head and drinking in the steam of a sauna. Carol had the luxury of being home all day to do that. I had to go to work where most of my fellow employees sounded a lot like I did.As the advent to Easter began, I held out hope that like Carol, I would have my Easter miracle and sing flawlessly on Easter morning.Palm Sunday: no voice. Maundy Thursday: no voice. Good Friday: no sound whatsoever. Easter Sunday finally arrived. Would my miracle be here? Carol Brady had awakened ready to sing. When my alarm went off, I jumped out of bed and opened my mouth prepared to send out a note of highest praise.Instead, a frog croaked nearby thinking it had heard its mating call.I blamed my kids for not praying as hard as Cindy Brady prayed for her mama to sing her solo.But on second thought, maybe the Good Lord had heard the prayers for my cantata voice — the prayers of the other singers in the choir hoping for one more hour of quiet from the second row.An unexpected result, but I guess if nothing else, Easter has always delivered to us results that were unexpected.