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

Rodney is Martin’s father, who by Martin’s own description is someone who served as a constant reminder that he was loved. For instance, in a scene on a South African beach, where Rodney holds Martin’s stiff body by the ocean so that Martin could hear the waves, Martin reveals that he was scared. Rodney, however, spoke with the reassurance of a loving father: ‘“You’re safe,’ he kept telling me” (111). In that moment, Martin reveals, “as I felt my father’s arms holding me upright and his strength keeping me steady […] I knew his love was strong enough to protect me from an ocean” (111).

Thus, Rodney is a safe haven for Martin, a protector and guardian whose devotion and love often brought Martin back from the clutches of despair and hopelessness. A “bear of a man with a huge gray beard like Father Christmas” (32), Rodney would wake up every two hours to turn Martin’s body. Even through Martin’s mother’s depression and suicide attempts, Rodney “held down a demanding job and looked after me [Martin], for the most part, singlehandedly” (35). Rodney is in many ways a constant source of hope for Martin, a testament to the power of a parent’s love for their child.

Joan is Martin’s mother, perhaps the most complicated figure in “Ghost Boy.” For much of the time that Martin remained unable to communicate, Joan felt tormented by losing the Martin she knew. As doctors advised both her and Rodney to place Martin into full-time residential care, Joan “believed my [Martin’s] condition was permanent and I [Martin] needed so much special care that having me at home would harm David and Kim” (33). Martin made sense of Joan’s rationale in the following way: “She had lost one child, and she didn’t want her healthy surviving son and daughter to be hurt in any way” (33). Eventually Joan’s despair led her to attempt suicide by taking pills, which ultimately resulted in her stepping away from Martin’s care entirely for a time, at the advice of her doctors.

One particularly poignant memory that Martin shares while she was still caring for him occurred after an argument between Joan and Rodney, after which Joan said to Martin, “You must die. You have to die” (63). Yet eventually Joan returns to a place where she can care for Martin again, especially as he learns how to voice his needs and emotions by being able to communicate. The hurts of the past remain with her, however. As Martin prepares for his new life with Joanna, he reflects, “As my mother looks at me and admits that she stopped believing in hope, I know the wounds of the past are in some ways still as fresh for her today as they ever were” (264). Her love for him is real, tangible, but his condition has taken a significant toll on her.

Joanna is the woman Martin falls in love with after he has learned how to communicate, the woman who fully embodies the victories of Martin’s transformative recovery. On countless occasions she shows him the true nature of unconditional love, as she proves to him through her words and actions that she loves him exactly as he is, not as she hopes he will someday become. As Martin writes, “I’ve never known a person who accepts me so completely and has so much peace inside them” (230). Joanna is gentle but direct, kind but willing to challenge Martin when she needs to. She loves him, utterly and completely, and her love for him starts to heal the wounded parts of his heart. Her acceptance of who he is speaks powerfully to her love for him, as Martin explains: “Joanna accepts me as I am today and doesn’t mourn what I once was. What surprises me most, though, is that she seems almost uninterested in my rehabilitation” (231). Joanna is the culmination of Martin’s hopes, the ultimate fulfillment of the dream of what his life could be. Joanna is a woman of strong faith and conviction, qualities that define the way she cares for Martin.

Erica is an American woman who befriends Martin after he delivers a speech. She is charismatic and vivacious, and she soon becomes one of Martin’s closest friends. Erica opens up Martin’s world, as she starts to invite him to experience what other people his own age enjoy. Martin describes her as “a special person—the first I’ve encountered, apart from my family and those paid to care for me, to accept my physical limitations without question” (119). The friendship Martin enjoys with Erica is also free of the complication and expectation of romance, which helps both of them enjoy each other purely as friends. Before Martin meets and falls in love with Joanna, Erica is a safe haven for him, someone who is genuinely in his corner and who provides a great deal of comfort for him. He defines her as someone “who knows me well enough to pre-empt whatever I’m going to say” (131). After enduring so much time without friends, Erica is a source of great security for Martin.

Virna is one of the caretakers at Alpha and Omega, a woman who believed so strongly that Martin was trying to communicate that she’s partly responsible for his initial progress and later successes. As Martin recalls Virna’s care for him, he writes, “when Virna spoke to me it was different. She wasn’t talking to herself, or someone else, or even the room like most people do” (20). She chose to treat him with dignity, and her meticulous attention to detail eventually led to her belief that he could actually communicate. In fact, largely at Virna’s insistence, experts assessed Martin and were able to identify rudimentary attempts to communicate.

Martin explains her confidence in him in the following way: “Virna wouldn’t be swayed. A fire of conviction had been lit within her” (22). Thus, Virna stands out as a crucial character in Martin’s story not only because of her kindness and compassion, but also because she was acute in her observations of him. She cared for him in a way that surpassed the responsibilities of her duties. Eventually, Martin falls in love with Virna. When she tells him she doesn’t feel anything other than friendship for him, Martin experiences an unprecedented heartbreak. Despite this, however, Virna remains a fundamentally important person in Martin’s life.