All it takes for things to turn topsy-turvy is a moment and all it takes for miracles to occur is a moment. The one thing that I always remember every time I think about miracles is Erich Segal’s novel, ‘Doctors’ – my most favourite book.

Though the lives of Laura Castellano and Barney Livingston, two doctors who know each other ever since their childhood and for whom their friendship mean the most in their life – the friendship which eventually culminates in love and marriage, form the crux of the book, yet this book is all about doctors, what goes into the making of doctors, the hardships, the inner conflicts that they go through in the process of becoming doctors and even after they become one too.

Can medicine really cure everything always? Is it just the medicine alone that cures a disease? – Despite talking so much about doctors and medicine, this book ponders over these too.

When the son of Barney and Laura is down with a rarest of disease with no prescribed cure at all, they don’t hesitate to try every possible way of curing their son, from trying out an untested medicine to some Chinese potion, not knowing if any of it would really cure the disease. When two doctors, feeling so helpless, spend a sleepless night with their dying kid, despite being doctors, all they can do is hope for a miracle to occur. And it does occur.

What was it, he asked himself. Wyman’s enzyme? The Chinese potion? A doctor’s touch? A parent’s love?
He had spent most of his lifetime studying the art of medicine and realized now that he would never really understand its mysteries.
For medicine is an eternal quest for reasons – causes that explain effects.
Science cannot comprehend miracles.

A night of wonder is how Barney refers to that night. Every time I read the last few pages of this book, all I can do is silently agree with Barney that a night of wonder it really is. 🙂