Picture of the Christ—A recollection of a true story

The two aunts had taken Eleanor to the park one afternoon in her wheelchair. Legs supported by braces, she was unable to walk. The aunts shook their heads—it was only too tragic. The automobile sped along; the city of Victoria was a luxurious scape before them, like a stonewalled garden they had just discovered.

Upon reaching Beacon Hill Park, the little girl was wheeled to the swings, where she watched the other children. Longing to join them, she pleaded with the two old aunts to remove her leg braces. Sniffing, they finally consented as if she had pleaded with them for a white rose, and her voice, a lark—her song traipsed over her feet in the grass as she joined the children, unhindered.

Taking her picture alone in front of the lilac bush without the braces, they could only frown on her former suffering, her winces at seclusion in a chair. The picture turned out, it was black and white, but it held only a man’s face upon the receiving instead of Eleanor’s. It was a picture of the Christ. Eleanor walked straight now, and the miracle of it all was somewhat like whispers under the moonlight.

                            _______________________________

This story was told to Emily when she was nine by a church parishioner, when she saw for herself the black and white photograph of Christ's face. She has changed the names in the story, but the details are the same.