A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul Read online

  M. Scott Peak

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  Grandmother's Gift

  For as long as I can remember, I have called my grandmother Gagi. "Gaga" was the first word that came out of my mouth as a baby, and my proud grandmother was sure that I was trying to say her name. She has remained my Gagi to this day.

  At the time of my grandfather's death, at 90 years of age, my grandparents had been married for over 50 years. Gagi felt the loss deeply. The central focus had been taken from her life, and she retreated from the world, entering into an extended period of mourning. Her grieving lasted nearly five years, and during that time I made it a conscious habit to visit her every week or two.

  One day I went to visit Gagi expecting to find her in her usual state of quiescence that I had come to know so well since my grandfather's passing. Instead, I found her sitting in her wheelchair beaming. When I didn't comment quickly enough about the obvious change in her demeanor, she confronted me.

  "Don't you want to know why I'm so happy? Aren't you even curious?"

  "Of course, Gagi," I apologized. "Forgive me for not responding quickly enough. Tell me, why are you so happy? Why this new disposition?"

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  "Because last night I got an answer," she declared. "I finally know why God took your grandfather and left me behind to live without him."

  Gagi was always full of surprises, but I have to admit that I was really taken aback by this statement.

  "Why, Gagi?" I managed.

  Then, as if imparting the greatest secret in the world, she lowered her voice, leaned forward in her wheelchair and confided quietly, "Your grandfather knew that the secret of life is love, and he lived it every day. He had become unconditional love in action. I have known about unconditional love, but I haven't fully lived it. That's why he got to go first, and I had to stay behind."

  She paused as if considering what she was about to say, and then continued, "All this time I thought I was being punished for something, but last night I found out that I was left behind as a gift from God. He let me stay so that I too could turn my life into love. You see," she continued, pointing a finger to the sky, "last night I was shown that you can't learn the lesson out there. Love has to be lived here on earth. Once you leave, it's too late. So I was given the gift of life so that I can learn to live love here and now."

  From that day, every visit became a new adventure as Gagi shared her stories regarding her goal. Once when I went to see her she pounded the arm of her wheelchair in excitement and said, "You'll never guess what I did this morning!"

  When I responded that I couldn't guess, she continued excitedly, "Well, this morning your uncle was upset and angry with me over something I had done. I didn't even flinch! I received his anger, wrapped it in love and returned it with joy." Her eyes twinkled as she added, "It was even kind of fun and his anger dissolved."

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  Though age continued on its relentless course, her life was vigorously renewed. Visit after visit added up to the passing of years, while Gagi practiced her lessons in love. She had a purpose worth living for, a reason for going on those last 12 years.

  In the last days of Gagi's life I visited her often in the hospital. As I walked toward her room one day, the nurse on duty looked into my eyes and said, "Your grandmother is a very special lady, you know . . . she's a light."

  Yes, purpose lit up her life and she became a light for others until the end.

  D. Trinidad Hunt

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  Angels Don't Need Legs to Fly

  There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love . . .

  Thornton Wilder

  On one of my recent trips to Warsaw, Poland, the tour guide for our group of 30 citizen diplomats from The Human Awareness Institute in San Mateo, California, was shocked when I said we wanted to visit with people. "No more cathedrals and museums," I said, "We want to meet with people!"

  The guide, whose name was Robert, said, "You are pulling my leg. You must not be Americans. Canadians, maybe. Not Americans. Americans don't want to visit with people. We watch Dynasty and other American TV shows. Americans are not interested in people. So tell me the truth. You are Canadians or maybe English, yes?"

  Sad to say, he was not kidding. He was very serious. However, so were we! After a long discussion about "Dynasty" and other TV shows and movies, and admitting that yes, there are many Americans like that but many more who are not, we were able to convince Robert to take us to visit with people.

  Robert took us to a convalescent hospital for elderly women. The oldest woman there was over 100 years

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  old, and she was reportedly a former Russian princess. She recited poetry to us in many languages. Although she was not very coherent at times, her grace, charm and beauty shone through and she didn't want us to leave. But we had to. Accompanied by nurses, doctors, attendants and the hospital administrator, we got to hug, laugh with and hold almost all of the 85 women in that hospital. Some called me "Poppa" and wanted me to hold them. I did, and I cried voluminously as I saw the beauty of their souls in their withered bodies.

  However, the major shock of our tour was the last patient we were to visit. She was the youngest woman in the hospital. Olga was 58 years old. For the past eight years, she had sat alone in her room refusing to get out of bed. Because her beloved husband had died, she no longer wanted to live. This woman, who once was a medical doctor, had attempted suicide eight years earlier by throwing herself under a train. The train had cut off both her legs.

  As I looked at this decimated woman, who had gone through the gates of hell because of her losses, I was overcome with such grief and compassion that I fell to my knees and started stroking and kissing the stumps of her legs. It was as if I were being compelled by a power much greater than myself. As I was kissing and stroking her, I was speaking to her in English. I only found out later that she did, indeed, understand me. But that was irrelevant because I hardly remembered what I said. It was something about feeling her pain and her loss, and encouraging her to use her experience to help her patients in the future with a greater compassion and empathy than ever before. And that in this time of great transition, her country needed her now more than ever. Just as her country was ravaged and decimated and was now coming back to life, so must she.

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  I told her that she reminded me of a wounded angel and that the Greek word angel, angelos, means, "messenger of love, servant of God." I also reminded her that angels don't need legs to fly. After about 15 minutes or so, everyone in the room started sobbing. As I looked up, Olga was glowing as she called for a wheelchair and started to get out of bed for the first time in eight years.

  Stan Dale

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  He's My Dad

  The following letter was dropped off at an outpatient clinic of a large teaching hospital. Although the writer's identity is unknown, its content is relevant to all those in health care.

  To Each Staff Member of this Facility:

  As you pick up that chart today and scan that green Medicaid card, I hope you will remember what I am about to say.

  I spent yesterday with you. I was there with my mother and father. We didn't know where we were supposed to go or what we were supposed to do, for we had never needed your services before. We have never before been labeled charity.

  I watched yesterday as my dad became a diagnosis, a chart, a case number, a charity case labeled "no sponsor" because he has no health insurance.

  I saw a weak man stand in line, waiting for five hours to be shuffled through a system of impatient office workers, a burned-out nursing staff and a budget-scarce facility, being robbed of any dignity and pride he may have had left. I was amazed at how impersonal your staff was, huffing and blowing when the patient did not present the correct form, speaking carelessly of other patients' cases in front of passersby, of lunch breaks that would be spent away from this "poor man's hell."

  My dad i
s only a green card, a file number to clutter

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  your desk on appointment day, a patient who will ask for directions twice after they've been mechanically given the first time. But, no, that's not really my dad. That's only what you see.

  What you don't see is a cabinetmaker since the age of 14, a self-employed man who has a wonderful wife, four grown kids (who visit too much), and five grandchildren (with two more on the way)all of whom think their ''pop" is the greatest. This man is everything a daddy should bestrong and firm, yet tender; rough around the edges, a country boy, yet respected by prominent business owners.

  He's my dad, the man who raised me through thick and thin, gave me away as a bride, held my children at their births, stuffed a $20 bill into my hand when times were tough and comforted me when I cried. Now we are told that before long cancer will take this man away from us.

  You may say these are the words of a grieving daughter lashing out in helplessness at the prospect of losing a loved one. I would not disagree. Yet I would urge you not to discount what I say. Never lose sight of the people behind your charts. Each chart represents a personwith feelings, a history, a lifewhom you have the power to touch for one day by your words and actions. Tomorrow it may be your loved oneyour relative or neighborwho turns into a case number, a green card, a name to be marked off with a yellow marker as done for the day.

  I pray that you will reward the next person you greet at your station with a kind word or smile because that person is someone's dad, husband, wife, mother, son, or daughteror simply because he or she is a human being, created and loved by God, just as you are.

  Author Unknown

  Submitted by Holly Cresswell

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  What Goes Around Comes Around

  When I was working as a disc jockey in Columbus, Ohio, I used to go to University Hospital or Grant Hospital on my way home. I would walk down the corridors and just walk into different people's rooms and read Scripture to them or talk to them. It was a way of forgetting about my problems and being thankful to God for my health. It made a difference in the lives of those I visited. One time it literally saved my life.

  I was very controversial in radio. I had offended someone in an editorial that I had done about a promoter who was bringing entertainers into town who were not the original members of a particular group. The person I exposed literally took a contract out on me!

  One night I was coming home at about two o'clock in the morning. I had just finished working at a night club where I was the emcee. As I began to open my door, a man came out from behind the side of my house and said, "Are you Les Brown?"

  I said, "Yes, sir."

  He said, "I need to talk to you. I was sent here to carry out a contract on you."

  "Me? Why?" I asked.

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  He said, "Well, there's a promoter that's very upset about the money you cost him when you said that the group that was coming to town was not the real group.""Are you going to do something to me?" I asked.He said, "No." And I didn't want to ask him why because I didn't want him to change his mind! I was just glad!

  He continued, "My mother was in Grant Hospital and she wrote me about how you came in one day and sat down and talked to her and read Scripture to her. She was so impressed that this morning disc jockey, who didn't know her, came in and did that. She wrote me about you when I was in the Ohio penitentiary. I was impressed with that and I've always wanted to meet you. When I heard the word out on the street that somebody wanted to knock you off," he said, "I accepted the contract and then told them to leave you alone."

  Les Brown

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  The Two-Dollar Bill

  Returning from a trip to Washington, D.C., I arrived in Anchorage at about 2:00 A.M. on a Monday morning in the middle of May. At 9:00 A.M., I was scheduled to talk at a local high school to students in a program designed to keep pregnant teens and troubled kids in school.

  The school is highly secured because most of the kids are troublemakers who become involved with the law. I found it very difficult to address this multicultural group and talk about things that could motivate them for the future. I wasn't making any headway until I started talking about what I do so well, helping people with money.

  I took out a stack of $2 bills and I started giving them out. People started coming up and taking them. The kids started to wake up because it was free money. The only thing I asked them after they took the money was not to spend it on themselves. I told them that they each had children that are unborn and, maybe, if there is anything in this world that could help move them forward, it is the fact that someone cares enough to do this.

  Some of the kids asked for my autograph, some did not. I think I honestly touched some of them. I started exchanging the dollar bills for a copy of the book I had

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  written. This went on for five or six minutes and I finally closed with telling them about my grandfather, who had motivated me to go forward. I told them that no matter what happens, to remember that whether it is a teacher or themselves, someone out there really cares about them and is pulling for their success.

  This is not the end of the story. When I left the classroom, I told them to call me if they ever had problems or if they were ever in trouble. I couldn't promise that I could help, but I was willing to listen and willing to try to do anything in the world. I also told them if they wanted a copy of my book to call my office. I would be happy to send one to them.

  Three days later, I received a crumpled piece of paper in the mail. It was from a girl who heard my talk.

  Dear Floyd,

  Thank you very much for taking time to come and talk to my class. Thank you forgiving me the crisp, new $2 bill. I will cherish this forever and I have written my child's name on it and it will never be used for anything else, but something that she wants or she needs. The reason I am writing you is because the day that you talked to our class, I had made a decision that morning. I had cleaned out my desk, paid whatever bills I owed the school, and I was going to take mine and my unborn child's life because I really didn't think anyone cared. When you told the story, it brought tears to my eyes, about someone pulling for you, that life was not ready to be terminated. The fact is I will probably stick around awhile, because there are people like you that care about people like me, that don't even know me. Thanks for caring.

  Floyd L. Shilanski

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  The Ultimate Sacrifice

  Linda Birtish literally gave herself away. Linda was an outstanding teacher who felt that if she had the time, she would like to create great art and poetry. When she was 28, however, she began to get severe headaches. Her doctors discovered that she had an enormous brain tumor. They told her that her chances of surviving an operation were about 2 percent. Therefore, rather than operate immediately, they chose to wait for six months.

  She knew she had great artistry in her. So during those six months she wrote and drew feverishly. All of her poetry, except one piece, was published in magazines. All of her art, except one piece, was shown and sold at some of the leading galleries.

  At the end of six months, she had the operation. The night before the operation, she decided to literally give herself away. In case of her death, she wrote a "will," in which she donated all of her body parts to those who needed them more than she would.

  Unfortunately, Linda's operation was fatal. Subsequently, her eyes went to an eye bank in Bethesda, Maryland, and from there to a recipient in South Carolina. A young man, age 28, went from darkness to sight. That young man was so profoundly grateful that he wrote to the eye bank thanking

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  them for existing. It was only the second "thank you" that the eye bank had received after giving out in excess of 30,000 eyes!