Poetrymanusa Michael Lee Johnson has seen the Easter Bunny and it is thirty feet tall.
The irony is I am published, with poetry in 26 countries, and run and edit seven poetry sites. But I failed creative writing class, Lethbridge University, Alberta Canada. Now PhDs in English send me their poems from around the world for review.
Yes, I did miss grades 2-4 due to a leg illness that had a “large name”, short for cancer of the bone in both legs. Very painful as a youth, my father and mother carried me over their shoulders with casts on both legs. I was young 8 or 9 year old. All I do remember is my mother taking me to Calvary Temple in South Bend, Indiana– the name has likely changed since– to a faith healer called Cliff Ericson (I have searched for on the net and not found since).
It was a Pentecostal church. I was only eight or nine years old. All I do remember is my mother taking me up to the healing line on prayer call and this person putting his hand on my head and asking, “Do you believe in Jesus?” I said yes! I was a kid, I believed in the Easter bunny. In fact, I saw the Easter Bunny at my little pink house on Bob-O-Link Drive, South Bend, Indiana. When alone, one day, he was 30 foot tall, as high as telephone poles.
All I felt was an electric bolt go through my young body. I went home and my mother insisted taking me back to Dr. Bisiane in Roseland, Indiana-a small strip of South Bend, heading north on Hwy. USA 31, towards the Indiana, Michigan Stateline. It was some complicated medical name for bone cancer in my legs. The doctor told my mother there was no reason to take more x-rays of my legs-that in time, I would be a cripple and not able to walk at all. He was very scientificly oriented, good, ethical, doctor. My mother insisted and he took the x-rays against his better judgment and put them up on a lighted board for us all to see.
He said he had no conceivable explanation for what he saw on these x-rays. All he knew for sure was the bone cancer on both legs was totally gone. He cut off the casts from my legs that day and my mother and the doctor helped me down three flights of stairs with care. I never went back. I am not a religious freak, but I do believe. I promised Jesus Christ when I was young, never to deny this event.
The doctor is now dead. I have looked his name up but could not find it since it dates back about fifty-seven or fifty-eight years ago. The doctor had a son call “Ben” at Clay High School in South Bend, Indiana around 1962. I went on to Niles, Michigan to graduate years 1964 and 1965. This is not a made up story. I do not know what to say about it accept I cannot deny it. I have seen so many fake “healers” since.
readings by Michael Lee Johnson
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