A Miracle

Steve Clark was a boy whom doctors never expected to survive polio. This memoir follows his road from that grim outlook through a long recovery, and it highlights the parents and other people who helped carry him through it. The story is also rooted in faith, looking at God's role in the gift of life and at the strength that comes from a foundation built on God and the Bible.

At the lowest point of his illness, the book describes God reaching into a gray-black lake to bring him back to life. His family kept their hope alive even after they were told he had died, and again when they were told he had only days to live. Shortly afterward, they learned his life expectancy might be measured in months or years. The author's parents drew on their commitment to hard work, self-reliance, and God's plan, which gave them the resilience to face the severity of bulbar polio.

The account covers what the poliovirus did to him in body, mind, and spirit, and how he and his family answered each challenge. Throughout the exhausting work of relearning how to speak and move, he describes feeling that God never left their side. Hope runs through the narrative as the force that helped him endure the pain of recovery and keep improving.

The book also explores post-polio syndrome, the lasting effects that can continue for decades after the initial illness. It describes how this condition still shapes his life and the lives of many other polio survivors.