He was 18 years old.
A handful of colored pencils and a devotion he learned simply by watching.
Every night he drew the Virgin Mary.
At the same time, in the same silence until one dawn, something happened that no one has been able to explain to this day.
But before we continue, leave a comment saying where you’re watching from and what time it is there right now.
I would love to see how far the miracles of the Virgin Mary are reaching.

Marcus was 18 years old.
He lived in Boston with his parents and his grandmother Margaret.
The house was small but cozy.
It had a front garden where his mother planted tulips and it had a living room where in one corner there was a statue of the Virgin Mary.
His father worked as an electrician.
He always came home tired but always with a smile on his face when he saw Marcus.
His mother took care of the house and of her mother-in-law Margaret.
They weren’t rich.
Far from it.
But they were happy.
Do you know that kind of simple happiness?
Everyone having dinner together at the table, weekends watching movies, cuddled up on the couch.
That was what the family had.

Grandma Margaret was 72 years old.
Every day at 7 in the evening, she knelt in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary.
She stayed there for half an hour, hands together, eyes closed, praying the rosary in silence.
Marcus was always nearby watching TV, reading, or just staying in the living room.
He saw it every day for years.
Do you know that kind of routine that becomes part of life that you don’t even think about anymore?
It just exists.
That’s how it was for Marcus.
His grandmother praying at 7.
It was as much a part of life as the sun rising.

Marcus was autistic and did not speak.
He never spoke.
But the family understood him perfectly.
He had his own ways of communicating, gestures, expressions.
The whole family knew how to read them.
And his connection with his grandmother was special.
Margaret understood Marcus in a way that sometimes even his parents couldn’t.
When he was uncomfortable with something, she noticed before anyone else.
When he wanted something, she was already offering it, and Marcus loved his grandmother in his own way.
He always stayed longer in the living room when she was there.
He always sat closer when she was on the couch.
There were things that were just the two of them.
Every Thursday morning, for example, his grandmother made pancakes.
And Marcus always came into the kitchen when he smelled them.
He stood there watching her prepare the batter, pour it into the pan, flip it at just the right moment, and when the pancakes were ready, she put one on his plate first, always with the exact amount of honey he liked.
She knew, after years, she simply knew.
His mother watched this from a distance and felt something tighten in her chest because it was a connection she herself didn’t have with her son.
Not like that.

Marcus had his own way of showing love.
Like that time when she was sad.
It was right after a friend of hers passed away.
Margaret tried to hide it, but she was different, quieter.
Her eyes read from crying so much.
Marcus noticed that day.
He didn’t go to his room after dinner like he always did.
He stayed in the living room, sat down next to her on the couch and stayed.
His grandmother was looking at the TV without really seeing it, thinking about distant things.
Then she felt it.
Marcus had taken her hand.
He just held her hand.
And they stayed like that for more than an hour until his grandmother finally took a deep breath and whispered, “Thank you, my love.”
Marcus squeezed her hand, and she understood.

There were also the nights when Marcus couldn’t sleep.
It happened sometimes.
He became restless, uncomfortable, not knowing how to explain why.
The mother tried to help, the father did, too.
But nothing worked until the grandmother appeared at the bedroom door.
“May I come in?” she asked softly.
He nodded yes.
She came in, sat down on the chair beside his bed, and began to hum.
It wasn’t a specific song.
It had no lyrics.
It was just a melody, gentle, repetitive.
And Marcus, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, slowly felt his body relax, the restlessness fading, and he would fall asleep.
Do you know that kind of love that doesn’t need words? that simply exists, that shows itself in small gestures that go unnoticed by the rest of the world.
That was what Marcus and Margaret had.

In March, something changed.
Margaret began to feel tired.
She no longer wanted to get out of bed.
She started sleeping more, much more.
At first, they thought it was just age.
But when Margaret began to complain of pains that wouldn’t go away, they took her to the doctor, then to another, and another.
Marcus remembers the day everything truly changed.
It was one afternoon in April.
He was in the living room when he heard the front door open.
His parents came in.
His grandmother was not with them.
His mother went straight to the bedroom.
Marcus heard the door close.
He heard the sound of muffled crying.
His father stood still in the living room, staring at nothing.
With an expression Marcus had never seen before, Marcus approached, touched his father’s arm.
His father blinked as if he had forgotten Marcus was there.
“She thought she had to stay in the hospital for a few days to run some tests.”
Marcus didn’t ask anything else, but his father saw it on his face.
He saw the fear, the confusion.
“We hope she’ll be okay, son. We really hope so.”
But there was something in his father’s voice, something Marcus could sense, even without fully understanding it.
Desperation.

The days that followed were confusing.
Trips back and forth to the hospital.
The house suddenly felt too big, too silent.
Marcus went to the living room at 7:00 in the evening as always, but his grandmother wasn’t there.
The statue of the Virgin Mary stood alone in the corner, and for the first time in years, no one knelt before it.
Marcus stayed there, standing, watching, waiting for something that didn’t come.
Margaret returned home a week later, but Marcus noticed immediately.
She was different, thinner, her movement slower.
She smiled when she saw Marcus, but it was a tired smile, a smile that took effort.
“Hi, my love,” she said in a weak voice.
“It’s all right,” she whispered.
“But it wasn’t.”
In the days that followed, Margaret spent most of her time in bed.
“It’s the treatment,” his mother explained when Marcus stood in the bedroom doorway watching.
“It makes her tired.”
Marcus overheard conversations, fragments of words, serious, advanced, few options, and the worst of them all, time.
How much time does she have?
Marcus didn’t understand all the medical details, but he understood enough.
His grandmother was very, very sick.
And maybe, maybe she wouldn’t get better.

It was on a Tuesday that everything changed for Marcus.
It was 7:00 in the evening as always.
Marcus was in the living room.
Marcus looked at the statue of the Virgin Mary alone in the corner, as it had been for weeks now.
Marcus stood there motionless, just staring at the statue.
Then, without really thinking, he went to his grandmother’s bedroom.
The door was half open.
He pushed it gently.
His grandmother was lying in bed.
The rosary she always held had fallen beside the pillow.
Marcus stood there in the doorway watching.
He wanted to do something, anything.
But what?
He went back to the living room, looked at the statue of the Virgin Mary again, and then he went to the cabinet where they kept paper.
He took some sheets.
He took the colored pencils.
He sat down on the floor in front of the statue.
He looked at it.
He really looked for the first time, paying attention to every detail, the blue mantle, the outstretched hands, the serene expression on the face.
He picked up the blue pencil and he began to draw.

His mother found him there.
Marcus, sitting on the floor, surrounded by colored pencils, completely focused on the paper in front of him.
She stopped at the entrance of the room, surprised.
Marcus had never drawn before.
He had never shown any interest in drawing.
She wanted to ask what he was doing, but something made her stay quiet.
There was a concentration on his face that she recognized.
It was the same expression he had when he was doing something important, something that meant something to him.
So she simply stayed there watching from the doorway in silence.
Half an hour later, Marcus finished.
He set the last pencil aside, picked up the paper, looked at it for a long moment.
It was the Virgin Mary.
It wasn’t perfect.
Far from it. an irregular circle for the head, slightly crooked lines for the mantle.
The joined hands represented by simple shapes.
The colors went outside the lines in some places.
The blue of the mantle was not uniform, but it was recognizable.
It was her, and underneath there was a word, grandma.
The mother felt tears burn her eyes.
Marcus stood up, folded the paper carefully as if it were something precious.
He went to his grandmother’s bedroom.
The mother followed him, keeping her distance.
Marcus entered the room in silence.
His grandmother was still sleeping.
He went to the bed slowly, carefully so as not to make any noise.
He lifted her pillow just a little and placed the drawing underneath.
He adjusted the pillow back in place, stood there for a moment, looking at his grandmother.
Then he left.
The mother was standing at the door, tears silently running down her face.
Marcus passed by her and went to his own bedroom.
The mother stayed there, looking at her mother-in-law sleeping at the pillow that now held a secret, and for the first time in weeks, she felt something like hope.

The following night, at exactly 7:00, Marcus did the same thing.
He took paper.
He took the pencils.
He sat on the floor in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary and he drew.
The mother watched again from a distance.
She noticed that Marcus was trying to improve.
The circle of the head was a little rounder.
The lines of the mantle a little softer.
When he finished, Marcus did exactly what he had done the night before.
He went to his grandmother’s bedroom, put the old drawing away in a box he had taken from under his own bed, placed the new one under the pillow.
That became routine.
Every day, same time, 7 in the evening.
Marcus drew the Virgin Mary.
It wasn’t perfect.
Some days were better than others.
Some days he had more patience and put in more care.
Other days he was tired, and the drawing came out simpler.
But he drew and the mother noticed something.
While Marcus was drawing, there was a piece in him.
The same piece that used to be on his grandmother’s face when she prayed.
It was as if somehow Marcus had found his own way of doing what his grandmother had always done, his own way of praying.

A few weeks later, his grandmother was worse.
Now she spent the entire day in bed.
She could barely eat.
She needed help with everything.
The house had changed completely.
There was a nurse who came during the day to help.
There was a heavy silence that no one knew how to break.
The father came home from work and went straight to his grandmother’s room.
He sat in the chair beside the bed, stayed there for hours.
Sometimes he spoke softly.
Sometimes he just held her hand.
The mother cooked soups that the grandmother could barely eat. cleaned the room twice a day, adjusted pillows, organized medications.
She did anything to feel useful, to feel that she was helping in some way.
And Marcus, Marcus kept drawing, even when it seemed useless, even when his grandmother was visibly getting worse every day.
Every day at 7 without fail.
Paper, pencil, floor in front of the statue.
Have you ever done something even without knowing if it would work?
Even when all the evidence says it won’t help at all, Marcus did because it was the only thing he could do.
The only way he had to say what he couldn’t put into words.

In July, Marcus overheard a conversation he was not supposed to hear.
It was late afternoon on a Wednesday.
He was in his bedroom when he heard the phone ring in the living room.
He heard his father answer.
But a few minutes later, something in his father’s voice made him get up.
He went to the door, opened it just a crack.
He could hear his father’s voice.
And there was something different in it.
Something that made Marcus’s stomach tighten.
His father was crying.
“I understand, doctor. Yes. Yes, I understand.”
A long silence.
Marcus opened the door a little more.
Just a little.
“How long do you think that How long does she have?”
The world stopped.
His father’s voice broke completely.
“Weeks. But But are you sure there’s nothing else? Nothing at all?”
Silence.
Marcus could hear his mother in the background sobbing.
That kind of crying that comes from a very deep place.
“Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you for calling, doctor. Thank you for for everything you did.”
The phone was hung up.
And then Marcus heard his parents crying in the living room without hiding. without trying to be strong, just crying.
Marcus stood frozen at his bedroom door.
Weeks.
His grandmother had only a few weeks.
And then suddenly, reality hit him with a force that almost knocked him over.
It was no longer a distant possibility.
It was no longer something that maybe could be avoided.
It was real.
It was certain.
It was inevitable.

Marcus went to the bed, sat on the edge, and for the first time since his grandmother got sick, Marcus cried.
It wasn’t a quiet cry.
It was deep, visceral, the kind of cry that comes when you finally stopped trying to be strong.
He cried for Thursday mornings without pancakes.
He cried for Sunday afternoons with no one to sit beside him on the couch.
He cried because the only person in the world who completely understood him was leaving, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He cried until there were no tears left, until his head hurt, until his body was completely exhausted.
Then, with his hand still trembling, he looked at the clock, 7:20 in the evening.
He had missed the time for the cartoon.
For a moment he thought about letting it go, but then he remembered.
He remembered his grandmother kneeling before the statue every day for years, even when she was tired, even when she didn’t feel like it.
Every day at 7 without fail.
And Marcus realized something.
She didn’t pray because she thought she would get something.
She didn’t pray expecting immediate answers.
She prayed because it was what she could do.
It was her way of connecting with something greater.
It was her way of saying, “I trust.” Even without understanding, Marcus got out of bed, went to the closet, took paper and pencil, sat on the floor in front of the statue, and with his hands still trembling, he began to draw.
This time it was different.
Tears fell onto the paper as he drew.
They blurred some lines, stained some colors.
The drawing turned out crooked, imperfect.
But Marcus didn’t stop.
He drew the mantle.
He drew the hands.
He drew the face with that expression of peace he tried so hard to capture.
When he finished, he stared at the drawing for a long time.
It was the worst one he had ever made.
All smudged, all crooked, but it was the most honest.
He folded the paper, went to his grandmother’s room.
The door was half open.
He pushed it gently.
His grandmother was sleeping.
Marcus stepped closer, carefully lifted the pillow.
He placed the drawing underneath, but this time he didn’t leave right away.
He stayed there beside the bed, looking at her.
And then, without thinking too much, he held her hand with tears silently running down his face.
Do you believe that sometimes when we have nothing left, when we finally admit we can’t control everything, when we stop trying to be strong and simply surrender, that it’s exactly then that something greater can come in.
Marcus finally let go of his grandmother’s hand, wiped his face with the back of his hand, went back to his own room, completely exhausted.
He lay down on the bed without changing clothes.
Just laid down, closed his eyes, and fell into a heavy sleep, deep.

He doesn’t know what time it was when he woke up.
He only knows he woke up suddenly, completely alert, as if someone had called him.
He sat up in bed, confused, disoriented.
The house was in absolute silence.
But there was something different in the air.
Marcus couldn’t explain what, just something, a change, a presence.
That’s when he noticed it.
The light.
It was coming from outside the room, from the hallway.
But it wasn’t the normal hallway light.
It wasn’t the light his mother always left on so he wouldn’t be afraid of the dark.
It was different, softer, warmer, as if someone had lit candles.
Many candles.
Marcus got out of bed slowly, his heart beating faster without knowing why.
He went to the door, the light was coming from his grandmother’s room.
And there was a smell.
Marcus took a deep breath.
Roses.
Fresh roses.
As if someone had brought an entire garden into the house.
But there were no roses there.
His mother didn’t plant roses.
She never had.
The smell was strong, unmistakable, impossible to ignore.
Marcus stepped out into the hallway.
The corridor was bathed in that golden light.
It was coming from his grandmother’s room.
The door was half open.
More light spilled through the cracks.
Marcus went there.
He reached the door, pushed it slowly, and saw.

There was someone in the room standing beside his grandmother’s bed.
A woman.
Marcus blinked once, twice, three times.
He thought he was dreaming.
He had to be dreaming.
But he wasn’t.
The woman was real.
She wore a mantle, dark blue.
But it wasn’t an ordinary blue.
It was a blue that seemed to contain the entire sky.
The mantle fell softly over her shoulders, over the white dress that glowed with that impossible golden light.
But it was the face, the face that made Marcus forget how to breathe.
It wasn’t just beautiful.
Beautiful wasn’t a strong enough word.
It was a face that seemed to have been sculpted by someone who perfectly understood what love meant.
Every feature, every curve, every detail.
It was the face Marcus had tried to draw for weeks, but never managed to, because how do you draw perfection?
How do you capture on paper something that goes beyond any description?
But it was the eyes that impacted Marcus the most.
It wasn’t the color.
It was what was inside those eyes.
Love.
It was a love that saw everything.
Every fear, every pain, every tear, every crooked drawing, every night crying alone.
The woman’s hands were resting on his grandmother, one hand resting gently on her head like a blessing, the other over her heart, right where Marcus knew his grandmother always felt pain.
And there was an expression on the woman’s face as she looked at his grandmother.
Tenderness.
Tenderness so deep that Marcus felt his eyes burn.
Marcus couldn’t move.
He couldn’t blink.
He couldn’t do anything except stand there frozen in the doorway watching.
How long did he stay like that?
He doesn’t know.
It could have been seconds.
It could have been hours.
Time had lost all meaning.
The woman remained there, her hands on his grandmother, her eyes now closed, and Marcus realized she was praying, and the scent of roses grew stronger, more present, filling every corner of the room.
Then slowly the woman opened her eyes and turned her head and looked directly at Marcus.
And in that gaze Marcus heard things without words.
I saw every drawing.
I saw every tear that fell onto the paper.
I heard your silent prayers.
The woman smiled.
And that smile.
How do you describe something like that?
And in that smile, Marcus knew with a certainty that came from somewhere deeper than thought, deeper than reason, the Virgin Mary was there in his grandmother’s room, looking at him.

Marcus’s legs weakened.
He had to hold on to the doorframe.
Then the Virgin Mary leaned down slowly and kissed his grandmother’s forehead.
Then she began to move away.
The light began to fade.
The scent of roses grew weaker, and the woman, she didn’t leave through the door.
She simply ceased to be there.
Marcus remained frozen.
For how long, he doesn’t know.
Then finally, he was able to move.
He entered the room, went to his grandmother.
She was sleeping.
But something was different.
Marcus sat in the chair beside the bed, that same chair where his father used to spend hours.
He took his grandmother’s hand, stayed there for a few minutes.
He stood up from the chair, and went to his own room.

Marcus woke up to the sound of something falling in his grandmother’s room.
It was 6:00 in the morning.
He jumped out of bed, ran into the hallway.
The mother was also running, coming out of her own bedroom, still in her pajamas.
“What is it? What happened?”
They reached the grandmother’s bedroom door at the same time, and they stopped.
The grandmother was sitting on the bed.
Sitting, not lying down, not sleeping, sitting.
The glass of water that had been on the bedside table had fallen to the floor.
That was the sound they had heard.
The grandmother turned when she heard them at the door, and she smiled.
“Good morning,” she said.
Her voice was weak, but it was her voice.
The mother froze.
“Margaret, you you are”
“I’m hungry,” the grandmother said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
The mother broke down in tears.
She ran to the bed, hugged her mother-in-law carefully, as if she might break.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! Margaret, how are you? Are you in pain? Do you need anything? Let me call the doctor. Let me”
“I’m fine,” the grandmother interrupted gently.
“I’m just hungry.”
Marcus was still standing in the doorway watching.
The grandmother saw him.
Their eyes met and she smiled at him.
It wasn’t the weak smile from the past few months.
It was her smile, the real one.
When he came closer to the bed, the grandmother held out her hand.
“He took it.”
“Thank you,” the grandmother whispered, squeezing his hand.
Marcus didn’t understand.
“Thank you for what?”
But before he could process it, the father came into the room, still half asleep, drawn by the noise, and the whole house turned into a happy chaos.

The days that followed were strange.
Margaret began to eat little by little, but she ate.
She began to stay awake longer.
She began to talk again.
The parents didn’t understand.
They called the doctor.
“She’s improving,” they said with fear and hope.
The doctor urged caution.
Don’t get too excited.
But the improvement continued.
Two weeks later, new tests.
Marcus held his grandmother’s hand at the hospital.
When the results came in, the doctor called them in.
His face was pale.
“I don’t know how to explain this,” he said.
“The tests show that that she is improving significantly.”
“What do you mean?” The father asked.
“Her body is responding. It’s winning.”
“But you said there was nothing more that could be done.” the mother began.
“I know what I said,” the doctor interrupted.
“And in all my years of medicine, I have never seen anything like this. I cannot scientifically explain what is happening.”
He looked at Margaret.
“Whatever it is, keep doing it.”
Margaret continued to improve slowly, gradually, but steadily.
In October, she managed to walk around the room without help.
In November, she sat in the living room again.
In December, the doctor said a word the family never thought they would hear.
Remission.
Margaret was in remission.
Throughout all this time, Marcus kept his secret.
He never told what he saw that night.
He never said anything about the woman in the blue cloak, about the light, about the scent of roses.
He stopped drawing.
He didn’t need to anymore.
He kept all the drawings in a shoe box.
More than a hundred drawings.
Sometimes he took out the box and looked at them, each one different, some well done, some terrible, all made with the same silent devotion.

The family was gathered in the living room.
It was the grandmother’s birthday, 73 years old.
There was cake.
There were presents.
There was laughter.
Margaret was in the living room sitting on the sofa.
Her hair had grown back.
Her cheeks were rosy.
Her eyes shone.
It was impossible to look at her and remember the woman from a year earlier.
The doctor had called it an inexplicable remission.
The parents called it a miracle.
They gave thanks every day.
And Marcus Marcus kept his secret.
That night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Marcus went to his room.
He took the box of drawings, opened it, looked at each one.
He stopped at the last one, the one he had drawn that night. the night he cried.
The drawing was smudged by tears, crooked, imperfect.
But it had been that drawing that was under the pillow when the Virgin Mary came.
Marcus held the paper carefully, closed his eyes.
He put the drawing back in the box, placed the box at the back of the closet, and went to sleep.

There are things in this world that science cannot explain.
There are things that doctors do not understand.
There are things that challenge all logic and reason, and there are things that only those who live them can truly know.
Marcus knew.
He saw it with his own eyes.
Because sometimes the greatest miracles do not happen with thunder.
Sometimes they happen in silence in the middle of the night inside a simple house to an 18-year-old young man who simply no longer knew what to do except to draw and to wait and the Virgin Mary heard.