Such suffering on my part must have been pleasing to Our Lord, because He was about to prepare a most bitter chalice for me which He was soon to give me to drink. My mother fell so seriously ill that, at one stage, we thought she was dying. All her children gathered around her bed to receive her last blessing, and to kiss the hand of their dying mother. As I was the youngest, my turn came at last. When my mother saw me she brightened up a little, flung her arms around my neck and with a deep sigh, exclaimed: “My poor daughter, what will become of you without your mother! I am dying with my heart pieced through because of you.” Then bursting into tears and sobbing bitterly, she clasped me more and more tightly in her arms.
My eldest sister forcibly pulled me away from my mother, took me to the kitchen and forbade me to go back to the sick room, saying: “Mother is going to die of grief because of all the trouble you have given her!” I knelt down, put my head on a bench, and in a distress more bitter than any I had ever known before, I made the offering of my sacrifice to our dear Lord. A few minutes later, my two older sisters, thinking the case was hopeless, came to me and said: “Lucia! If it is true that you saw Our Lady, go right now to the Cova da Iria and ask her to cure our mother. Promise her whatever you wish, and we’ll do it; and then we’ll believe.”
Without losing a moment, I set out. So as not to be seen, I made my way across the fields along some bypaths, reciting the Rosary all the way. Once there, I placed my request before Our Lady and unburdened myself of all my sorrow, shedding copious tears. I then went home, comforted by the hope that my beloved Mother in Heaven would hear my prayer and restore health to my mother on earth. When I reached home, my mother was already feeling somewhat better. Three days later, she was able to resume her work around the house. I had promised the Most Blessed Virgin that, if she granted me what I asked, I would go there for nine days in succession, together with my sisters, pray the Rosary and go on our knees from the roadway to the holmoak tree; and on the ninth day we would take nine poor children with us, and afterwards give them a meal. We went then to fulfill my promise and my mother came with us.
“How strange!” she said: “Our Lady cured me and somehow I still don’t believe! I don’t know how this can be!”