Kindness

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CHUSH 

In New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning-disabled children.  Some children remain in Chush for their entire school career, while others  can be main-streamed into conventional schools.  At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a  speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling  the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, "Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God's perfection?" 

The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father's anguish and stilled by the piercing query. "I believe," the father answered, "that when God brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that He  seeks is in the way people react to this child." 

He then told the following story about his son Shaya: One afternoon Shaya and his father walked past a park where some boys Shaya knew were playing baseball. Shaya asked, "Do you think they will let me play?" Shaya's father knew that his son was not at all athletic and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya's father understood that if his son was chosen to play it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging. 

Shaya's father approached one of the boys in the field and asked if Shaya could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his team-mates.  Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We are losing 
by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning." 

Shaya's father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya's team scored a few runs but was still behind by 
three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya's team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded with the potential winning run on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. 

Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shaya was given the bat. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible because Shaya didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it. However, as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shaya should at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came in and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya's team-mates came up to Shaya and together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shaya. 

As the pitch came in, Shaya and his team-mate swung the bat and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman. Everyone started yelling, "Shaya, run to first. Run to first!" Never in his life had Shaya run to first. He scampered down the baseline wide eyed and startled. By the time he reached first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who was still running. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher's intentions were, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head. Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second." Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing short stop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base and shouted, "Run to third." 

As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming, "Shaya run home!"  Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit a "grand slam" and won the game for his team. 

"That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "those 18 boys reached their level of God's perfection." 

Author Unknown

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Derrick Thomas

A bright light goes dark too soon...... He would get up early on Saturday mornings, drive to the local
library and read to children he didn't know.

He would walk into the hospital with teddy bears in both arms and cry when the parents would call later and tell him their boy had died clutching his football card to his chest. He would go from locker to locker, demanding at least $100 from each of his rich teammates because this was the week he had decided he
wanted to raise $14,000 to feed 750 families. He would pay to send 18 strangers to college, just because, and he would write a single check to cover the $61,500 in library fines accrued by Kansas City kids. He would be on his way to practice, making a cell phone call to McDonald's here and another to Hyatt there, and next thing you know 700 inner-city Miami kids were at a camp instead of on the streets. 
Derrick Thomas would . . .

"He would do so much that nobody knew about,'' Dorecia Tepe said Tuesday afternoon, just after learning Thomas had died. ``I can tell you he was like an angel God sent to protect our son.'' You want to know how valuable a man we lost Tuesday? Dorecia Tepe can tell you, between the sobs. Her boy had AIDS.  Philip was dying a lonely, painful death in 1994. An entire basketball tournaments being canceled in Lone Wolf, Okla., because nobody wanted to play with her son, this adorable little outcast. Derrick Thomas wasn't the type of man who would just read about this in the newspaper. Derrick Thomas was the type of man who would go out and fix it. So Thomas sent Philip tickets to one of his games, plus a limo to pick him up. He took Philip golfing, buying his clubs and bags and shoes. He sent him a Sega and a football signed by Joe Montana for Christmas. And all those kids in Lone Wolf, Okla., you should have seen how jealous they got when the picture appeared in the local newspaper, Derrick Thomas rubbing Philip's head at a charity game. Philip didn't need to play basketball with those kids anymore because, well, he was playing with Barry Sanders and Thurman Thomas.

"He helped my son so much,'' Dorecia Tepe said Tuesday.  "Derrick was like a bright light in our life when
things felt very dark. How many people as important as Derrick would take time out of their busy schedules to
make time for a young man they didn't even know? He held a very special place in our hearts, the way he
cared, and he did that for a lot of people, not just us. I just wrote him a letter the other day reminding
him how much we loved him.''

Cringing and convulsing and crying, the pain unbearable, Philip knew he didn't have much time left in March of 1994. His mother says today that she is convinced, no doubt, that Philip was waiting to see Thomas one more time before he died. So Thomas came in on a Tuesday, arriving on a plane he borrowed from a friend, and gave Philip one of his All-Pro jerseys -- the only time he had ever given one of those away.  Philip smiled and wept. He died less than 48 hours later.

"Why does this have to happen to someone like Derrick?'' Dorecia said through the sobs Tuesday.  "Why? Why? Why? Why do we have to lose his kind?'' We didn't merely lose a local success story or a football star Tuesday morning. What we lost was a hero.

Thomas grew up in Miami with a whole lot of anger, losing his father at the age of 5 when the surface-to-air missile hit the B-52 Stratofortress over Vietnam. Derrick was arrested twice, for burglarizing a home and stealing a car, and was so bad that his mother and grandmother would spend their nights praying in the darkness, hoping he wasn't at the other end of those gunshots and sirens. Thomas' mother knew her husband's death had scarred Derrick, but she didn't know how deeply until hearing Derrick talk about it on television . . . from the White House, where Derrick's Third and Long Foundation was being honored as the 832nd of President Bush's 1,000 points of light.

An interesting thing happened to Thomas on the path toward lifelong delinquency. So many South Florida judges and teachers and coaches and parents stepped in his way, guiding him in another direction, that he later dedicated his life to doing the same, which is why he was always in those libraries and hospitals.  ``People cared for me, so now I care back,'' Thomas told me back in 1998. "It's not important what I do in this game. What matters is 20 years from now, if I'm walking down the street and a doctor or lawyer or teacher says I made a difference in their life. Having the most sacks in NFL history? That'll be great. Winning a Super Bowl? That'll be great. Breaking the single-season sack record? That'll be great. But I want to be remembered as someone who made a difference.''

You'll forever be remembered that way by an awful lot of people, Derrick. Like Dorecia Tepe, for example. Because friends told her she should bury her son Philip in a suit. But she chose a Chiefs jersey.

Author Unknown

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Information Please 

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall.  The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box.  I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person--her name was "Information, Please" and there was nothing she did not know.  "Information, Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.  

My first personal experience with this genie-in the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.  I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information, Please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.  

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear, "Information." 
"I hurt my finger," I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. 
"Isn't your mother home?" came the question. 
"Nobody's home but me." I blubbered. 
"Are you bleeding?" the voice asked. 
"No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." 
"Can you open your icebox?" she asked. 
I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your 
finger," said the voice. 

After that, I called "Information, Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk, that I had caught in the park just the day before, would eat fruit and nuts.  

Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called  "Information, Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child, but I was inconsolable.  I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring  joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?" 
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in."  Somehow I felt better.  

Another day I was on the telephone. "Information, Please." 
"Information," said the now familiar voice. 
"How do you spell fix?" I asked. 

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information, Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. 

As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. 

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking 
what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information, Please." Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well, "Information."

I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?" 

There was a long pause. Then came the soft-spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now." 

I laughed. "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?" 

"I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me? I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls." 

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. 

"Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally." 

Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered, "Information." 

I asked for Sally. 

"Are you a friend?" she asked. 

"Yes, a very old friend," I answered. 

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." 

Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?" 

"Yes," I replied. 

"Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." 

The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in.  He'll know what I mean." 

I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant. 

Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. Whose life have you touched today? 

Author Unknown