“Notes left behind”

Wow.

Notes left behind: Six-year-old cancer victim Elena Desserich’s heartbreaking messages of love to her family

These are the heartbreaking notes a six-year-old cancer victim hid for her family to find after she died.

Elena Desserich was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer when she was just five years old.

During her nine-month struggle with the illness, Elena, from Wyoming, hid hundreds of notes between the pages of books, in cupboards, drawers, bags, and clothes stashed away for the winter.

What a sweet little angel. They’re still finding the notes, more than two years later, and have written a book about it called “Notes Left Behind” as a tribute to Elena and to help little sister Gracie remember her.

“Gracie” … a nickname for “Grace”. Sounds like there is a lot of Grace in the Desserich family.

While the Desserichs were forming their own tribute, Elena was secretly writing notes and tucking them away in nooks and crannies in her house and the houses of relatives.

‘She was a child who was wise beyond her years,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hate to think she knew she was dying but I think she did.’

‘I think the notes were her way of telling us that everything would be OK,’ added Mrs Desserich.  ‘It feels like a hug from her every time we find one.’

[...]

‘We don’t ever want to find the last note,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hope we keep on finding them for years to come.’

In fact, both parents have saved one unopened note from Elena which they carry with them in their briefcases.

‘It’s our way of saving the last note,’ said Mrs Desserich.

Our sincere condolences to them on their loss.

Please go read the whole thing.

 

Offering Thanks

It isn’t every day that we get to thank God for miracles.  Today is an exception.

My Uncle Bill has kidney disease, and has been on dialysis since August.  He’s only 56 years old, and in excellent health otherwise.  He played football at Wheaton College — just one mile from where I live now — and he looks like he could still suit up and play, right now (he weighs less today than he did then).

His wife Betsy is a genetic match and so they were told she could potentially donate a kidney, and they’d pinned their hopes on that.  Later, they were given the devastating news that a previous health concern with her would prevent her from donating.

But new doctors and hospitals changed that diagnosis.  As it turns out, the previous health concern was trivial, and she was cleared as a donor a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday they did the transplant surgery, and it was deemed an immediate success, and both are recovering today.

I just want to offer my thanks to God, for a gift of life for my uncle, his wife, and his 3 kids.

One day at a time, and today is a great day!

Hope, Pride, and Change

Steve H. has a very touching post about his Dad called “Christmas Gift”. Please go read it now. Twice.

I can relate, though my own Dad passed away a couple of years ago, so the resolution phase didn’t happen, unfortunately. We were actually closer long ago, but then drifted apart, for various reasons. I know part of that was my fault; I had mistaken for distance what was instead clinical depression, as I found out after he was gone.

He was a very proud man; too proud to rely on anybody, even his only son (and only child, period), for help. But I can understand that, because I’m a lot like him, in a lot of ways. As you can imagine, this is not a comfortable feeling as I approach my 50th birthday this year.

But the larger point I wanted to make here: I’m happy for Steve H. that he has found happiness through religion. Really, really happy. The contrast between his online persona today vs. a few years ago is striking, and its obvious he’s a much happier person today. It comes through on his site, loud and clear.

For those who’ve never read his various sites (I’ve been a fan since early in my blogging days 6 years ago), he is a very talented writer and humorist, but personally, he suffered from some obstacles in relations with his family. I don’t know Steve personally, but he puts it all out there with his writings, and the impression I got was that he was letting those obstacles define his relationships, instead of forgiving, and accepting people for who they are, and realizing that we all have things we should apologize for.

Who among us can’t relate to such feelings of failure as we get older, and our lives turn out to be so much more complicated, messy, and inconvenient than we pictured them as young adults?

Counting My Blessings

As usual, I don’t count my blessings nearly often enough, so with Christmas upon us, now is a great time to do that. And since I have a website, right here is a great place to do it..

• I’m grateful that … this year I got to see my Uncle Bill for the first time in close to 15 years. He’s the closest thing to a big brother — or any kind of brother — that I ever had, and we have been separated by thousands of miles and other barriers for too long. He’s only 6 years older than I am so the “Uncle” tag is a little misleading.
• I’m grateful that … even though I lost the job I had earlier this year, and don’t see those people much any more, I have yet another good job 20 minutes from home, and I was only out of work for 3 months, so we didn’t really go through any tough times.
• I’m grateful that … my kids are happy and healthy, despite my influence in their lives.
• I’m grateful that … my oldest boy is starting to show signs of maturing into a grown up young man, and none too soon, I might add.
• I’m grateful that … my middle boy is so even-tempered and happy all the time, because he brings joy to me, and my wife, and others too, just by being himself and having fun with life.
• I’m grateful that … my youngest boy is still only 7, and in first grade, so I can pretend I still have young kids at home, before the race from First Grade to Senior Year is over too fast.
• I’m grateful that … my wife puts up with my weird ways, and tries to understand when I’m not in the mood to talk about something, and has faith in me, and in us, that we can work around such things.
• I’m grateful that … I have my health, and can still bike, and run, and swim, and work out at the Y. Lots of people my age can’t, and while there are no guarantees for my own future in that department, I plan on taking advantage of it for a long time.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve come to grips with my own place in the world, my strengths and weaknesses, and am pretty OK with it.
• I’m grateful that … my wife has found the things that make her happy, and let go of some things from the past that were holding her back, and we both see the [positive results of it every day.
• I’m grateful that … my Dad lived until I was 47 years old, and even though we developed some distance over the last few years of his life, his influence on me is lasting and I think of him often (I miss you, Dad!).
• I’m grateful that … my Mom is still alive, and in decent health (although it could be much better), though I wish she didn’t live 900 miles away.
• I’m grateful that … my faith journey has been gently guided by my wife, who is very driven by her own faith journey, even though I find reasons not to be. Maybe someday I can be more like her. I am trying.
• I’m grateful that … I have a blog and can therefore find the outlet for my need to put words on “paper”.
• I’m grateful that … my attitude about life is more positive now because I (try to) have faith that things will work out. And they usually do.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve forgiven myself (mostly) for a huge mistake in judgment I made in my early 20s. Beating yourself up doesn’t undo something you did; it’s important to not just resolve to do better next time, and to learn something from it, but to forgive yourself and allow God to forgive you, too.
• I’m grateful that … I was born in a country guided by the Founding Fathers, who were wise enough to use liberty as the guiding prinicple of the Constitution, which allows nearly unlimited mobility and freedom to be or do anything you want, at your own benefit / peril. Whatever you make of yourself is mostly due to things you did before, and most places in the world aren’t that accomodating.
• I’m grateful that … we have the most powerful and benevolent military ever to occupy this (or any other) planet, and we use it mostly for only the right reasons, and the fact that we have it at all provides untold and under-appreciated levels of security (and therefore freedom and wealth) for everybody who lives in freedom everywhere in the world. Really.
• I’m grateful that … I’ve been able to make a decent living using what God gave me: my brain, and a personality that is just social enough to fit in well enough in nearly every environment and every personal situation I’ve been in.
• I’m grateful that … my life has worked almost exactly the way I wanted it to. Education, marriage, family, kids, just enough prosperity but not too much (I hope).
• I’m grateful that … I woke up today.

If you haven’t counted your blessings lately, now might be a good time.

Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Prosperous New year to all!

Monday Links

Tony Woodlief writes about the value of mystery in the life of a child, and therefore, in all of us.

Shaq O’Neal is approaching 5000 free throws missed, and to put that in perspective, I liked this best:

If Larry Bird were to come out of retirement and miss his next 3,000 free-throw attempts (which would require him to shoot 0 percent for about seven seasons, based on his peak season of 492 free-throw attempts), he’d still have a higher career free-throw percentage than Shaq.

Hah!

“Marathon Love” Documentary

This sounds like a really cool story:

That’s when Lynn McGovern’s life was shattered in a horrific car accident en route to a White Sox game, suffering a devastating brainstem injury that left her cognitively impaired and unable to walk.

It would be 17 days before the 24-year-old opened her eyes and another seven months before she uttered a word. Well-meaning friends told Parks he should bail out while he still had the chance.

“I said, ‘You’ve got to give me a better reason,’ ” said Parks, a mailman, who documented his fiance’s arduous recovery with thousands of hours of home video.

The couple ended up tying the knot in 1994—almost seven years and thousands of hours of physical therapy after their original date.

And the marathon part:

An avid runner, Jamie started pushing his wife in her wheelchair rather than leave her alone during runs. (While he’s at work, her mother and an aide are with Lynn, who still endures hours of therapy daily.)

Through sun and sleet, the Parkses became a fixture in their subdivision, waving to neighbors as they pass by.

He entered some 5K and 10K races, eventually working up to marathons. Only now, they are joined by their “miracle baby” Annalyn, 9, who acknowledges that her parents “are pretty cool.”

Along the way, there were setbacks, but last April, Jamie Parks—now 47—achieved the pinnacle of his running career: the Boston Marathon. At mile 20, Lynn talked her husband up Heartbreak Hill In the documentary, the runner scoops up his daughter at the last quarter mile and the three finish the race together (time: 3:25:45)—a lump-in-the throat moment.

Coffee as Expensive, Unyielding Religious Doctrine

Well, I Prefer Mine Black, Hot, With One Ice Cube, But That’s Just Me

John Kass says “History could have helped Starbucks foresee revolt”.

Starbucks is in the process of closing 600 stores nationwide, while Dunkin’ Donuts — that oh-so-unhip place where you can pay less money, get good coffee, much less attitude, and even a sinful doughnut if you dare — is opening 500 stores. Draw your own conclusions; I’ll go out on a limb and say that the demand for expensive coffee doesn’t go above the price of a gallon of gas. Who knew these things were tied together economically?

And then go read about this goofiness, where a hoity-toity coffee house in Washington, D.C. has a set of policies about just exactly how their customers are allowed to order their coffee. One of them is “no ice with espresso”. A customer got kinda P.O.’d, and blogged about it. Hilarity ensued.

Links to this ridiculousness can be found in the story; I’m not going to bother reading any more about this than I already have, because those are precious minutes of my life I can never get back.  But I basically agree with the customer in this case.

This is the explanation given by the owner:

At his cafe, Cho explained the policy: “The way we do espresso is different than what people are used to. It’s a very exacting technique. … When you pour it over ice, it creates a certain acidic reaction that makes the drink sour.”

In his letter on Murky’s site, Cho wrote: “To others reading this I will say that if you don’t like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you.”

Maybe some customers like it sour. People have different tastes; you can still take their money. In fact, as somebody running a business, the whole idea is to think up more ways to take their money.  I just don’t see the problem here.

But, of course, the problem is obvious:  it isn’t just coffee for these people, it’s a quasi-religion.  There are coffee beliefs, and Thou Shalt Not Disobey Them.

Yes, even if you fork over your hard-earned $4.50, you are still too stupid to make decisions about what you like, so just bend over and take it, and learn to like it!  Oh, and come back soon!

Josh Hamilton is the Feel-Good Story of the Year

Faith, Recovery, and Good Baseball — What’s Not to Like?

Josh Hamilton might not have won the overall Home Run Derby last night, but he put on an amazing display of hitting in the first round, with 28 homers, many of them in the upper deck. He hit 500+ foot blasts not once, not twice, but three times.

But Home Run Derbies come, and they go. The main thing to understand about Josh Hamilton is that, in the most important ways, he’s already won. After being drafted number one overall by Tampa Bay in 1999 — and being called “the best I’ve ever seen” by multiple scouts — he ended up taking a detour as a drug addict and an alcoholic for three or four years, and was out of the game from ‘03-’05. He could easily be dead already.

But because of his new-found faith, and his wife, and his family, he’s turned his life completely around, and can now show the world his talent for hitting baseballs. Win … win … win.

So good for him. God Bless Josh Hamilton.

Sports is often filled with stories of failure and disappointment, especially because so many young men with too much time and money on their hands are central to just about every sport. It’s sad to watch, even if it is inevitable much of the time; young men will do what young men will do. But because Josh’s recovery is faith-based, it would seem that he has a higher chance at success; here’s a quote from UT-Southwestern addiction specialist Dr. Bryon Adinoff (from the above link):

“If you replace addiction with religion, it’s not an addiction, it’s something meaningful, socially appropriate and rewarding,” Adinoff says. “It’s typically very healthy behavior.”

It was interesting to me how neither the broadcast crew on ESPN, or the article I read this morning (AP), noted that faith played the central role in Josh’s recovery. It’s like they’re scared to even mention it.  Out here in the real world, we know that oftentimes, religion helps people, and we also understand that acknowledging one specific instance where it quite likely saved a man’s life is just mentioning a true fact.

If they all care so much about the Josh Hamilton story, don’t they owe that to him, if nothing else?