Mark Miller's Miracle
Reported by Erik Smith
Web produced by Katie Gentry

Mark is able to needlepoint once again. Video

Mark Miller is once again doing what he loves best to do - stitching on an antique reproduction sampler. Rarely a day goes by, in fact, when his hands are not pushing and pulling a colored thread through a piece of linen, a simple cloth that will one day tell a story from the past to the future.

It is painstaking, time-consuming, but Mark has time now -- far more time than he was given back in 1996 when doctors told him he had terminal brain cancer.

Mark works on a needlepoint project.

"Several neurologists have looked at my M.R.I. and said, 'No, you shouldn't be here.' But here I am," Mark said.

In September 1996, Mark's passion for his needle and thread began to wane. He had just begun his 25th year teaching school, but the school year lasted only five days. He was 46 years old. Doctors told him he had become the victim of lymphoma of the central nervous system, a very rare and very aggressive form of brain cancer with few, if any, treatment options.

Mark is able to needlepoint once again.

The family talked. Mark came home to die. His wife Jo made the funeral arrangements. Hospice was invited, and with their abiding faith in God, the days passed into months until Mark's 47th birthday.

"He did not have a massive tumor anywhere. It was these little tiny lesions throughout the brain, and they were way down deep in the brain, and it was everywhere. And now all they see is scar tissue. They can't find this cancer anywhere," Jo said.

There simply is no medical explanation, no scientific analysis. Perhaps not even words that really apply to Mark Miller's personal miracle.

Mark and his wife

It was, we know, 18 months in the making. But in September 1997, he picked up a piece of cloth, his needle, his threads, and he began to stitch once again -- free of the cancer that had ravaged his mind and body and nearly stolen his life.

"We were enjoying each day the best we could because we didn't know if we were going to have any more. Fortunately, Mark is doing so much better that -- and the cancer is gone. They can't find it. We were told it could come back, but right now it's not there," Jo said.

Mark's delicate samplers hang in every room of the Millers' house. He has done scores of them in the past 12 years. His work has been displayed in Americana shows and even in the museum at Port Huron, but sadly his most treasured work vanished last year on a visit to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. It was the story of Mark's childhood, all done in needlepoint. It was to be an heirloom for his two young sons.

"There's a lot of sentiment. We really like family and genealogy, and to have these things passed down so they can really know who Mark was I think is really important, especially things that he's gone through," Jo said.

Certainly life has changed for Mark and Jo. The journey from a coma to consciousness, from a wheelchair to a cane, from death's door to life again, has been exhausting and, at the same time, enriching. Oh, yes. They believe in miracles. You bet they do! And they hope in your hearts you do, too.

"It's so easy for all of us to forget what we have, keep in mind, you know, these days are numbered. And enjoy, enjoy what you have," Jo said.

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