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Despite everything, I was still hopeful that maybe, just maybe, Hunter had a chance, so I carried him toward the altar. What else could I do? I was his mother.

As we apprehensively made our way to the front of the church, I looked around, hoping to spot someone who could point me in the right direction. I noticed people approaching a particular woman to the far left of the altar. She looked as if she was giving instructions, so I went up to her.

At this point Hunter’s crying had intensified, and I was doing everything I could to hold back my own tears. “Can you please tell me where I’m supposed to take my son? He is very sick and needs prayer.”

With a look of frustration, the woman brazenly responded, “Go to the back of the line. You’ll have to wait.”

Without hesitation I turned around and headed to the back of the church—I couldn’t get away from that woman quickly enough. Didn’t she hear Hunter crying and see the look on his little face? The lump in my throat became unbearable, and I was finding it difficult to breathe.

When I finally made my way over to where my mother and friends were standing, I completely broke down.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” my mother asked. I could barely talk through the sobs but managed to repeat what the woman said. Determined and angry like a mother bear, my mom made her way back up to the altar, found an usher, and explained to him what had happened. “My infant grandson has been crying for the last two hours,” she declared. “He’s very sick and can’t wait any longer, so can you please take him now?”

Before I knew it, my mother and I were headed back up to the front of the church with Hunter. We followed the usher through the crowd to the left end of the building where fewer people had gathered. I wanted to run out of there as fast as I could, but Hunter needed to be healed, so we stayed. Eventually the healer from Ireland prayed his way toward us. He was old and scruffy and in a peculiar way reminded me of Santa. He didn’t ask any questions or talk to us; he just reached out his wrinkled hands, laid them on Hunter’s head, and started praying. I don’t remember anything he said, but I do remember this: nothing happened. Hunter continued to cry inconsolably, and so did I.

We headed out the door as fast as we could. No one said a word until Karyn eventually spoke: “Those people are a bunch of freaks. We should’ve never stayed in there as long as we did. Hunter, you’re going to be just fine, little buddy.”

We all laughed and cried together.

Upon reaching the van, a woman carrying a five-foot crucifix approached us, nearly frightening us half to death. “They sent me out here to pray for the child. They think he can be healed.”

Once again, we were astonished and speechless. The woman leaned her enormous cross up against the van and motioned for me to hand Hunter to her. And I did. As I write this, I still can’t believe I let her hold Hunter. But I was desperate.

As she prayed over Hunter, I just stood there. I looked at the golf ball–sized rosary beads around her neck and the five-foot crucifix leaning against my van and thought to myself, Is she nuts? What in the—are we doing here? (I used to swear every now and then.) Why am I letting this strange woman hold my son? I felt so trapped in the weirdness of everything and just wanted this crazy escapade to be over. We didn’t pray along because we didn’t know what to do, but as soon as the woman was finished, I snatched Hunter away and got in the van.

After we were safely headed home, far away from all the healers, I burst out crying and protested, “What if that woman was one of God’s angels and she really did want to heal Hunter? What if God sent her? I had to let her hold him.”

Many tears were shed, and a lot of hope faded that night. No one said much on the way home; I’m sure we were all trying to process everything. The last thing I remember that evening was what my dear friend Mary said as she hugged me good-bye: “At least we tried, Jill, right? And now we know.”

Know what? I thought. Know that people go to crazy extremes out of