| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| balto |
Posted - 12/22/2011 : 19:46:46
I hope Dave wouldn't mind I use this post to share some of the stories that have over the years inspired me, gave me hope, taught me a lesson, or just gave me this wonderful and peaceful feeling inside of me for days. I hope you readers find them useful.
A TIMELY GIFT.
It had been years since Jack had seen the old man who lived next door to his childhood home. College, girls, career and life got in the way of remembering the man who had stepped into his life after his father died. In fact, Jack moved clear across the country in pursuit of his dreams.
In the rush of his busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past or even to spend time with his wife and son. He was working on his future and nothing could stop him. One night his mother called him. "Mr. Belser died last night," she said. "The funeral is Wednesday."
Memories flashed through his mind like an old newsreel as he sat quietly, remembering his childhood days. "Jack, did you hear me?" "Oh, sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It's been so long since I thought of him. I'm sorry, but I honestly thought he died years ago."
"Well, he didn't forget you. Every time I saw him he'd ask how you were doing. He'd reminisce about the many days you spent over 'his side of the fence' as he put it." "I loved that old house he lived in," Jack said. "He's the one who taught me carpentry. I wouldn't be in this business if it weren't for him. He spent a lot of time teaching me things he thought were important...Mom, I'll be there for the funeral."
Jack was busy, but he kept his word and flew to his hometown. Mr. Belser's funeral was small and uneventful. He had no children of his own, and most of his relatives had passed away. The night before he had to return home, Jack and his Mom stopped by to see the old house one more time. Standing in the doorway, Jack paused for a moment. It was like crossing into another dimension, a leap through space and time. The house was exactly as he remembered. Every step held memories. Every picture, every piece of furniture, until.....Jack stopped suddenly.
"What's wrong?" his Mom asked.
"The box is gone," he said.
"What box?"
"There was a small gold box that he kept locked on top of his desk. I must have asked him a thousand times what was inside. All he ever said was that it was the thing he valued most." But the box was gone. Everything was exactly as Jack remembered, except for the box. He figured someone from the Belser family had taken it.
"Now I'll never know what was so valuable to him," Jack said. Jack flew home the next day. About two weeks later, Jack discovered a note in his mailbox: "Signature required on a package, no one at home. Please stop by the main post office within the next three days."
Early the next day Jack retrieved the package. It was old and looked like it had been addressed a hundred years ago. The handwriting was difficult to read, but the return address caught his attention: "Mr. Harold Belser.
"Jack took the package to his car ripped it open. Inside was the gold box plus an envelope. Jack's hands shook as he read the note it contained: "Upon my death, please forward this box and its contents to Jack Bennett. It's the thing I valued most in my life."
A small key was taped to the letter. His heart racing, tears filling his eyes, Jack carefully unlocked the box. Inside, he found a beautiful gold pocket watch. Running his fingers slowly over the finely etched casing, he unlatched the cover. Inside, he discovered these words engraved: "Jack, Thanks for your time! - Harold Belser."
"The thing he valued most was...my time," Jack said to himself.
Jack held the watch for a few minutes, then called his office and cleared his appointments for the next two days! "Why?" asked Janet, his assistant. "I need some time to spend with my son," he said. "Oh, by the way Janet thanks for your time!"
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.
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So my fellow tmser's, slow down and spend sometime with your loveones. You can replace just about anything you've lost but not time.
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| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| balto |
Posted - 05/05/2012 : 13:41:58
This was collected from the www.
Wonder if any of you ever had the feeling that life is bad, real bad,…and you wish you were in another situation. Do you find that life seems to make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong….
It was not until yesterday that I totally changed my views about life; after a conversation with one of my friends.
He told me despite taking 2 jobs, and bringing back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is now, considering that he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old-age parents, in-laws, wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.
He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India……
That happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and was touring India after a major setback. He said that right in front of his very eyes, he saw an Indian mother chopped off her child’s right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother’s eyes, the scream of the pain from the innocent 4 years old child haunted him until today. You may ask why did the mother do so, has the child been naughty, was the child’s hand infected??
No, it was done for two simple words — to beg. The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child can go out to the streets to beg. I cannot accept how this could happen, but it really did, just in another part of the world which I don’t see.
Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a small piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, flock of 5 or 6 children swamp towards this small piece of bread which was then covered with sand, robbing of bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger. Striken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries.
The owner is dumbfolded , but willing sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaf of bread (this is less than $0.25/per loaf) and spend another $100 to get daily necessities. Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in life he wonder how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25. He began to ask himself how fortunate he is as a Singaporean. How fortunate he to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice what isn’t, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of…..
Now I begin to think and feel it, too. Was my life really that bad?
Perhaps….no,… it should not be bad at all….
What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.
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| balto |
Posted - 01/11/2012 : 17:51:13
By ERIN HAYES (for ABC News)
Nov. 10, 2006
When I met 18-year old Patrick Henry Hughes, I knew he was musically talented. I had been told so, had read that he was very able for someone his age and who had been blind and crippled since birth.
Patrick's eyes are not functional; his body and legs are stunted. He is in a wheelchair. When we first shook hands, his fingers seemed entirely too thick to be nimble. So when he offered to play the piano for me and his father rolled his wheelchair up to the baby grand, I confess that I thought to myself, "Well, this will be sweet. He has overcome so much. How nice that he can play piano."
The original plan, I thought, would be this: We were going to talk a bit as he played. That was the plan. Hughes would explain how he managed to navigate the keyboard and how he first learned the piano and what his favorite songs were.
But then Patrick put his hands to the keyboard, and his fingers began to race across it -- the entire span of it, his fingers moving up and back and over and across the keys so quickly and intricately that my fully-functional eyesight couldn't keep up with them. I was stunned.
The music his hands drew from that piano was so lovely and lyrical and haunting, so rich and complex and beyond anything I had imagined he would play that there was nothing I could say. All I could do was listen.
That is the power of Patrick Henry Hughes. He quietly makes you listen.
'God Made Me Blind -- Big Deal'
"I mean, God made me blind and didn't give me the ability to walk. I mean, big deal." Patrick said, smiling. "He gave me the talent to play piano and trumpet and all that good stuff."
This is Patrick's philosophy in life, and he wants people to know it. He isn't fazed by what many of us would consider insurmountable obstacles.
"I'm the kind of person that's always going to fight till I win," he said. "That's my main objective. I'm gonna fight till I win."
Patrick also attends the University of Louisville and plays trumpet in the marching band. The band director suggested it, and Patrick and his father, Patrick John Hughes, who have faced tougher challenges together, decided "Why not?"
"That's right," the younger Patrick said.
"Don't tell us we can't do something," Patrick's father added, with a chuckle. He looks at Patrick with a mixture of love and loyalty and admiration, something not always seen. in the eyes of a father when he gazes at his son.
"I've told him before. He's my hero," the elder Hughes said.
Father and Son Together at Band Practice
Patrick's father attends every practice and every game with him, and learns all the routines. It's fascinating to watch them together, with Patrick focused on his trumpet's notes, swaying with the rest of the band in time with the music, and his father focused on being his son's eyes and legs.
And this is no sit-still-in-the-wheelchair-while-the-band-marches-around-you routine: Patrick and his father are right in the thick of it, with the wheelchair sprinting and spinning in formation and Patrick hanging on and playing his heart out.
Patrick says the other students in the band have been great to them.
"The students always help out Dad because sometimes he might get out of step," he explained impishly.
Patrick's father grins and nods. He concedes that navigating a wheelchair across the thick grass of a football field, in formation, sometimes at top speed, offers many exciting challenges for a man old enough to be the father of a college student. Fortunately, fellow band members are eager and willing to point him in the right direction.
"The biggest problem is sometimes when I'm backing up with Patrick, I can't stop quick enough." he said. "I'll have a horn player behind me, and they've gotten smart enough now that, rather than running into their horn, they put their hand up."
Blindness as a Gift and a Blessing
Some parents might see some bigger problems in all of this. For example, Patrick's father works an overnight shift at a shipping company and gets four or five hours of sleep so he can attend Patrick's classes and band practices with him all day.
Patrick's mother, Patricia Hughes, works full-time to supplement their income. She also takes care of the household, Patrick's medical needs, and siblings, and handles the concerns of every parent of a disabled child who looks down the road and wonders how it could possibly work out.
That's just not how the Hughes family looks at things. Patrick taught them to see it all differently, his father says.
"Back then he was born it was, 'Why us? What did we do that this happened to us?'" he said. "And we ask the same question nowadays, but we put it in a whole new light. You know, 'What did we do to deserve such a special young man, who's brought us so, so much."
Patrick John Hughes' gaze drifted again to his son, and both their faces lit up with smiles.
"He sees the world in a way that we can't even imagine," the father said.
Just listen to young Patrick and you know what his father means.
"I've always felt that my talent has really been a gift from God," he said.
Patrick includes his blindness, by the way, in the list of gifts.
"That's one of the great benefits I've found of being blind. I don't see the skin color, I don't see the hair length, I don't see the eye shape, I just see what's inside the person," he said.
Actually, Patrick said, blindness more than a gift to him.
"I would have to say a blessing, because overall, it's shown me a complete world."
That's how young Patrick Henry Hughes sees the world.
"He has so much more to teach me," his father said. "And I think to myself: I see just what you mean. He's taught me so much already.
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Learn more about Patrick and his father at www.PatrickHenryHughes.com.
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and I thought I have a tough life. I have 2 good eyes. |
| balto |
Posted - 01/11/2012 : 08:34:49
The four fingers pianist.
It is the story of a mother and a daughter who have overcome odds from the very beginning.
Lee’s mother became unexpectedly pregnant while married to a disabled man. Doctors told her that because of a medication she had been taking her child would not be normal. She elected to continue with the pregnancy and in 1985 in Seoul, South Korea, little Hee Ah Lee was born with only two fingers on each hand, disfigurement of her legs, and slight brain injury. The hospital told Sun that she could not care for the child at home and relatives wanted her to place the child for adoption in a foreign country. Sun thought her baby was beautiful, however, and was determined that she would live a successful life.
When Lee was a pre-schooler her mother decided that she wanted her daughter to take piano lessons and for two reasons. One was that she felt it would help her strengthen her hands so she could hold a pencil. The other was that she felt that if she could master the piano, she could master anything. For six months piano schools turned them down then the one teacher who did accept the task got discouraged and wanted to quit. One year later Lee won the grand prize in a piano concert for Kindergartners. It was at age 7 that Lee won Korea’s 19th National Handicap Conquest Contest and was presented with her award by the President of Korea.
Today Lee is 22, has won numerous awards, and is a widely traveled concert pianist with more than 200 appearances. Her first album titled “Hee-ah, a Pianist with Four Fingers” will be released in June.
Lee gives tribute to her mother for challenging her to master the piano and said that although her training was difficult, "as time went by, the piano became my source of inspiration and my best friend."
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You can see a youtube clip of her here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FSnalrPYpc&feature=player_embedded#!
The grass is always greener on the other side. We need to stop competing with the neighbors. We need to slow down and learn from people like these mother and daughter. Learn how they over come adversity and difficulty without suffering from tms/anxiety. We have it much better than millions around the world. If we can come to realize that our problems are nothing, small, and insignificant then they will not turn into tms/anxiety. They only turn into tms when we place a big value on them.
Hope you like this. |
| TaylorJoh |
Posted - 12/23/2011 : 09:25:50
That's awesome Balto, thanks for sharing. |
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