S: Is for Stories from the Heart!

In writing yesterday's column and the previous ones like it, I realized I forgot something.....hope and encouragement. My friends and I are constantly sending these lifelines to each other, helping to show the light that sometimes seems missing. It is with great love, that I give this column to you, for those days when you find it hard to go on. If you the reader have something to pass on please email me and we will share your inspirations. From now on the S column will be three stories from the heart.

The first one comes from the animal kingdom. When a four legged animal is born with only two legs, they walk. They protect those who love them and those who need there help. Cookie is a guard dog who helps children cross the street. When researching, I found several dogs who everyday give despite their disability. Check out You Tube to see what I mean.

The second one This is a WONDERFUL example of overcoming an adversity. There is no way not to feel humbled and awed over this exhibition to never stop what you are passionate about. The women, in her 30's, was a dancer who had trained in ballet since she was a child. loosing her entire left arm in an accident ahe fell into a state of depression
until she was asked her to coach a Children's dancing group. From that, she realized that she could not forget her love of dancing. She returned her old routines, but, having lost her arm, she also lost her balance. It took a while before she could even make a simple turns or spins without falling. Then she heard of a man in his 20s who had lost his leg in an accident. Like her his depression and anger was an emotional roller coaster. Determined to find him (he was from a different Province) she persuade him to dance with her. He had never danced, and to "dance with one leg... are you joking with me? "No way!" Not giving up, she pursued him until reluctantly he agreed. She started to teach him dancing 101. After several setbacks they hired a choreographer. Entering a National dance competition they won with this most magnificent and touching performance. It is living proof that the human spirit can conquer any physical limitations!

Mischa Zimmermann’s life broke apart [nine] years ago when he was thirteen. He was diagnosed with a tumor that had penetrated his brain stem. His mother, Heni had been diagnosed with cancer six months earlier. “My own mother was a Holocaust survivor,” Heni recounts, and “so I grew up with stories of the camps the hopelessness and the terror. Mischa became ill to the point of teetering between life and death. While recuperating a five-year-old boy down the hall asked Mischa if he could borrow Toy Story. That event turned his life around. “I couldn’t believe how much something as small as a videotape meant to this kid. He hadn’t smiled in a week, and here he was grinning and laughing out loud. I also realized how good it made me feel to do something for another kid. It made me feel more alive and less involved in my own problems. That’s when I first had the idea for Kids Helping Kids. " While Mischa continued to fight for his health, he teamed up with his mother to launch Kids Helping Kids, a volunteer organization run by teens to benefit teens who are facing medical crises. The name of the group says it all-kids helping kids in whatever way they can: raising money to buy motorized wheelchairs, donating time to keep a lonely kid company in the hospital, pooling resources to grant a sick child a special wish. He recruited forty of his classmates at Montclair High School, in NJ. Up until the end he inspired with a courageous and willful act of compassion that multiplies the good in the world. Thought Mischa has passed on his legacy lives. Log onto to http://www.kidshelping.org/aboutus.html as his mom still carries on what her and her son began.

We all think that life has to be perfect before we can give, but the truth is life becomes perfect when we give and that is a F.A.C.T. that gives hope!