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| Lenny Martelli Photo from National Catholic Register |
The Rebuilding Year: A Miraculous True Story - Blogs - NCRegister.com
The following excerpt is from the National Catholic Register:
By Matthew Archbold
In sports, it’s called a rebuilding year. It’s when everything’s gone wrong, but there’s still hope for the future.
In life it’s called faith.
Everything went wrong a year and a day ago when 15 year old Lenny Martelli fell off his snowboard in Schwenksville Pennsylvania. His friends gathered round him as he lay in the snow and they heard the words nobody wanted to hear.
“I can’t move,” Lenny said.
This is a story about a year when reason allowed no reason to hope. It’s a story about a miracle that culminated on the basketball court at St. Joseph’s University—under the glare of television cameras from news networks and ESPN. Thousands in the stands cheered Lenny’s name, but there was no amazing basket with seconds left on the clock that night. No dunk highlights. This was a different kind of miracle altogether. The kind nobody expected. But maybe that’s exactly when miracles happen—when nobody expects them.
Doctors offered the Martellis a grim prognosis. The injury had left Lenny paralyzed from the chest down. They said the statistical likelihood of Lenny walking ever again was slim to none. But sometimes that little space between slim to none is all the space a miracle needs to slip in unnoticed and change everything.
Leti Martelli took a leave of absence from teaching at Our Lady of Victory School and she stayed with Lenny every day. She was there when doctors asked Lenny if he could move and she watched his frustration when he couldn’t. She asked the doctors every medical question she could think of and prayed at his bedside to Padre Pio and St. Therese. And she was there when a therapist off-handedly asked Lenny if he was related to Saint Joseph’s University basketball coach Phil Martelli. He said he wasn’t but he’d love to meet him. That was all Leti needed to hear.
When Leti heard that something might make her boy smile when smiling ever again seemed like a fantasy, she would’ve done anything. So Leti called Saint Joe’s and asked to speak to coach Phil Martelli. It was a desperate call to try to bring a little hope into her son’s life. She left a message and an hour later when she picked up the phone Phil asked if her name was really Martelli as well and then he said, “Tell me your story.”
Leti started but could hardly get through it. “My name is Leti Martelli and my son was in a serious accident.” Then came the tears. It’s strange how you can live through just about anything as long as you’re looking forward but when you look backwards even for a moment, the words themselves become too heavy to pronounce; as if saying them is harder than living them.
In the end, she asked Phil Martelli for a hat or a note with his autograph to brighten Lenny’s day. But Phil said that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.
“What’s the room number?” he asked.
To the surprise of just about everyone, a few days later Phil Martelli walked into Lenny’s room. Lenny was startled this man he’d only seen on television before was suddenly in his hospital room. “I was just a 15 year old kid in the hospital,” he said. “I mentioned his name once and he came. I was shocked and amazed.”
Faith in the Martelli family is strong. Someone had given Lenny a Padre Pio prayer card and “so we started to pray to Padre Pio every night,” said Leti. “And we blessed Len with Padre Pio oil every day.”
Leti didn’t eat or sleep while her son was in the ICU. Lenny’s Dad took care of their other children and Leti stayed right next to Lenny. To ask her to leave his bedside would’ve been like asking her to jump to the moon—impossible.
One night in the quiet of the hospital Leti looked up and saw someone else in the room. She knew what she thought she saw but didn’t know if she believed what she was seeing. She says she saw Padre Pio in the room. “Oh my, now I’m thinking I see a dead monk in the room,” thought Leti. Her mind knew what she was seeing was impossible. It’s impossible because we’re told it’s impossible but she also knew what she was seeing. “He walked right up towards me but focused on Lenny. He put his arm over Lenny’s weakest leg, his right one, and then he went away.”
The next morning the therapist asked Lenny to put his arms around her and see if he could put any weight on his legs. Lenny stood up put his arms around her.
Lenny asked “now what do you want me to do?”
“Walk,” she answered.
So he did. He walked all the way down the hallway. When he reached the end of the hallway, he turned and wondered to himself, “How did I get from there to here?”
Then he told everyone “I told you so” in that way that only a fifteen year old could. He said he told them he would walk and then he did.
“I believe Padre Pio was with us,” said Leti.
But miracles are miracles and they don’t always get you across the finish line. Sometimes miracles just give you the strength to believe the impossible is possible. It still took Lenny fighting his body, forcing it to do things it couldn’t.
Read more: Lenny Martelli
