True Heart
Please click some sad news regarding one of our sponsored children
Some people wonder if there is good left in this world or not. With all of the wars, fighting, hate crimes and looming danger, this world is becoming an increasingly more gloomy place to reside in. But every now and then, a ray of sunshine breaks through, and my faith is restored, even for a brief moment. One of those moments occured for me today, July 11th, 1998.
In order to better understand, some background information is necessary. A group of friends and I have formed a small social group which basically began with four people bashing The Lost World in a Mystery-Science-Theatre-3000ish manner, and has grown into a series of social events, parties, movies, etc. A general sense of togetherness and friendship. One of our groups members saw a newspaper article about a program at McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas called Pilot For A Day. What that basically entails (and the details may be a bit off) is giving a sick, or dying child, the opportunity to be a pilot for a day, putting him through everything that a pilot goes through, giving him a flight suit, his own name on a B-1B aircraft and his own personal dedicated flight, and fly-by. This program is funded by private community donations.
When this person passed the information along to the rest of us, and suggested that we gather up donations and maybe sponsor one of these kids (the plan was for one every month or so, at a cost of about $150-$200 per child, per month). We all jumped at this opportunity, and before you know it, word had spread through our office, and we had raised enough to sponsor 3 or 4 kids I believe (my information on this is a bit rusty, but for background information, this should give you an idea). Upon seeing how much money we had raised, the sponsor of the program was, needless to say, elated, and invited our entire group to go through the first one of these programs with the child, so that we could see, and experience, first hand, what our donations had done.
So today, was that agreed upon date. I won't go into too many of the details of the program, but suffice to say, there were a lot of smiles, both on the faces of the kids (the chosen child, a Lupus victim), and the parents and friends who went along. I don't care what anyone says, you cannot put a price on the smile of a child, knowing that something you did, put it there.
There is however, one sequence of events which brought about my restored faith. During the flight briefing, and presentation of the flight suits and gear, the child got his, and then the presenter said "Of course, every pilot needs a wing man" and with that, the child's younger brother was presented with a flight suit, and proceeded to get the same treatment through the day. This baffled some of us in the group a bit (never one to question a childs smile, but wondering) because the child himself, seemed a bit underwhelmed by it all, but the little brother was ecstatic. It was the conversation with his mother, regarding this, that nearly stopped my heart, and touched me deeply.
We mentioned these observations to her, and she stated that he was a bit tired, but also that he wasn't one for a lot of attention. He didn't like a fuss being made over him, and that the only reason he was going through all of this, was because he knew his little brother would really like it, so, for him, he would do it. This floored me. Here was a person, an ill person, putting himself through something that he didn't like, putting stress on himself, all for the happiness of his younger brother. This was probably one of the most generous acts that I had ever scene, the fact that no monetary value was involved, but rather feelings, emotions and love, made it all the richer to me. Just knowing that there is even one person like this in the world, a person whose heart and body may not be physically well, but whose spirit is alive, is inspiring, and makes me look at all of the petty, material things in this world, in a new light.
Sometimes we become so caught up in this capitalistic cycle that we all ride, that we forget the truly important and real things in the world. There is no amount of money that can replace the love of another, there is no material gift, that can replace a simple gift of love, sometimes, however cliche, we do need to just stop, and smell the roses, admire their beauty, marvel in the nature that created them, and emblazon that image into your heart and soul, for future reference when the world seems to become too much. In my estimation, the true measure of a person's wealth is not what he makes, but what he gives, and today, I got to see this personified. It is an impression, and expression of true heart, and love, that I will never forget.
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