Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped Inside His Own Body (2011)

“Have you ever seen one of those movies in which someone wakes up as a ghost but don’t know they’ve died? That’s how it was, as I realized people were looking through and around me, and I didn’t understand why.”

Here, Martin establishes the central image of his time in the care center—that he is a “ghost boy,” stuck in a purgatorial state where people barely acknowledged his existence or humanity. As Martin himself became aware of his illness, he had no way of asking those around him what was happening.

“I’ve come to understand the infinity of time so well that I’ve learned to lose myself in it.”

Without being able to talk or move, time became relative for Martin, as the minutes, hours, and days passed while he observed his life without being able to act or speak. While Martin was at the care center, he would wait out the time until he would go home to his family, the cycle then repeating itself daily, seemingly on an endless loop.

“Until the age of twelve, I was a normal little boy—shyer than most maybe and not the rough-and-tumble kind but happy and healthy.”

Martin provides a brief snapshot of his life before falling ill. He had no discernable health issues, and was living as a typical 12-year-old boy in Johannesburg. Then, his life would begin to deteriorate rapidly, until his childhood felt completely stripped from him.

“[…] Nothing could reach me as my muscles wasted, my limbs became spastic, and my hands and feet curled in on themselves like claws.”

Martin’s body and mind turned on him, and as his memory began to decline, the final stage of his body’s manifestation of the illness was the spasticity of his limbs. His life would forever change, which would trigger both the start of years of isolation and pain, and his miraculous journey out of them.

“Politely but firmly the medical profession washed its hands of me as my mother and father effectively were told to wait until my death released us all.”

After visiting multiple doctors and receiving conflicting diagnoses, eventually no medical expert was able to determine what the cause or treatment of his condition was. Death became an expectation, as Martin and his family received no reason to hope for recovery.

“Just as a baby isn’t born knowing it can’t control its movement or speak, I didn’t think about what I could or couldn’t do.”

Martin’s new reality after falling ill meant that he needed to relearn everything, which eventually would give him a greater understanding of just how much he had lost. As he compares himself to an infant learning its surroundings, he also evokes the image of a blank state, by which he must now navigate his life.

“I was completely entombed. The only person who knew there was a boy within the useless shell was God, and I had no idea why I felt His presence so strongly.”

Martin again alludes to the image of the ghost, a body stuck in a tomb, or a “useless shell,” as he puts it. Yet, even in his complete isolation and analogies about inhabiting his shell of a body, he seeks comfort by speaking with God, who becomes a companion in his desolate journey.

“To other people, I resembled a potted plant: something to be given water and left in the corner.”

Martin was deeply aware of the fact that some of his caretakers did the bare minimum in caring for him. He felt like he was in a metaphorical box, categorized as someone who others did not need to communicate with. Thus, he uses the metaphor of the potted plant to describe how little interaction he often received.

“I look at her. Tears glimmer silver in the corners of her eyes. Her faith is so strong in me I must repay it.”

Virna believed in Martin’s ability to communicate so strongly that she spoke to Martin’s parents, eventually persuading them to get Martin assessed by language specialists. Her belief in Martin has become deeply personal; as Martin puts it, it has become a matter of faith. Martin in turn feels that he must succeed at his assessment meeting, in order to justify her faith in him.

“I feel ashamed of my useless body and angry that it can’t do better the first time anyone asks anything of it.”

As the speech therapists assess Martin, he articulates how frustrating his lack of control over his body was in that moment. For so long, his body hadn’t been requested to do anything, and now when it mattered most he became angry at the disconnect that existed between his body and his mind.

“I’ve never told anyone what I want before. Would I be able to make choices if I was given them?”

Here, Martin allows himself the luxury of wondering what life would be like if he could articulate his thoughts and desires. He doubts his own ability to make decisions of his own, even if he were able to make decisions again, aided by the power of communication. This passage is a snapshot of the self-doubt he experienced before his life started to change for the better.

“This is the routine of my life and has been for as long as I can remember. So it is any wonder that I hang on to every word my parents say as they discuss what to do, and I begin to dream of a future I never thought I would have?”

For so long, Martin was not able to fathom the thought of having dreams and aspirations for his life. At times, he no longer wanted to be alive. As his circumstances begin to shift, however, he starts to dream again. His dreams, however, link directly to his family’s belief in his ability to improve, which adds another layer of emotional stakes to this passage.

“There was a silence for a moment before my sister spoke, but then I heard the joy in her voice from almost six thousand miles away. And in that moment I knew the ghost boy was finally coming back to life.”

Here, Martin expresses how his newly acquired communication methods began to positively affect his loved ones. As his sister experiences the joy of communicating with him, he himself experiences a resuscitation as well, the “ghost boy” replaced by a man who is now able to speak to his family and friends.

“When I needed to forget, I could always be free. However desperate I felt, there was always one place where I knew I could lose myself: my imagination. There I could be anything I wanted to be.”

Martin lived for so long with a seemingly infinite list of limitations when it came to what he could not do. As an escape from his present reality, Martin imagined himself as something other than what he was. Here, in his imagination, he was limitless. In this particular chapter, he recounts his fictional experiences as a pirate, swashbuckling in his mind to avoid confronting dark feelings.

“If there were Three Furies in my story, their names were Frustration, Fear, and Loneliness.”

Here, Martin names his primary afflictions, calling them the Furies of his life, wreaking havoc on his mental and emotional state for nine years. As these Furies threatened to eliminate hope from him altogether, Martin found that the only way to combat them was to acknowledge when people were intentional in loving and caring for him.

“Love between men and women has always interested me: the way it ebbs and flows like a living thing, or how it is revealed in secret smiles or anguished conversations. Perhaps I’ve always found it so captivating because it was the starkest reminder of how alone I was.”

Without the ability to communicate, Martin became an astute observer and student of human behavior. Here, he focuses on how he observed romance unfolding between two people. Yet, in his reveling and fascination of this kind of love, he also remembered his loneliness and isolation.

“Learning to communicate is like travelling along a road only to find the bridge you need to cross the river has been washed away.”

Translating thoughts into words had become a completely unfamiliar territory for Martin by the time he started to reacquire the ability to communicate. Here, he provides the metaphor of a bridge that no longer exists between two sides of a river. Specifically, Martin’s challenge in the context of this passage is the fact that he struggled to simultaneously retain the words he already knew, while also learning new ones. Without the nuances of tone or body language, Martin’s words were all he had to communicate.

“The feeling inside me is like the peace that comes when the final leaf falls from a tree in an autumn wood. Everything is quiet. I’ve lived my whole life as a burden. She makes me feel weightless.”

As Martin starts to fall in love with Joanna, he recognizes how she makes him feel. In his own understanding of her feelings for him, he also starts to shift the way he sees himself—not as a burden, but as a beloved human being. He longs for others to love him exactly as he is, without the expectation that someday his body will recover its former capacity.

“It is disorienting when your world becomes a different place almost overnight. But love isn’t about logic, and our phantom doubts are easily dismissed.”

After Martin and Joanna express that they are in love with each other, Martin ruminates on the disorienting nature of falling in love without having everything figured out. In their particular circumstances, this became all the more apparent and poignant. As he ventures into the unfamiliar realm of being in love and someone loving him as he is, he downplays the role that logic will play in their love story. There is nothing logical about their love, yet it is this love that awakens them to life’s most vibrant feelings.

“Love might be irrational, but we make the choice to risk everything.”

Here, Martin alludes once more to love’s illogical nature. Yet, even in its lack of reason, love is a choice. In all love stories, both sides make choices at every junction, including the choice to utter the words “I love you,” or the choice to remain faithful. In highlighting the intentionality of his love with Joanna, he dismisses the possibility that emotions beyond his control are dictating his actions.

“I feel awkward for a moment before our arms close around each other. Then, as I hold her for the first time, I realize that she smells of candy and flowers. I know that I will never let go of her again. I am home.”

“She laughs as she spins around, and her hair is lifted a little by the breeze. Joy rushes through me. We are dancing.”

Martin recalls the first time he and Joanna danced together, in Trafalgar Square in London. In the specificity of the memory, Martin reveals its importance to him. His time with Joanna, particularly this dance, has opened up another dimension to his life, as joy has now entered his life in a permanent way.

“All I know is that God has led me to the person who makes me whole.”

While Martin remained confined to his own mind, God was the only person he could communicate with, and now he expresses his belief that God brought Joanna into his life. Joanna is also a person of faith, so their shared belief that God is at work in their lives deepens their connection to each other.