Miss Becky's Blog

YOU CAN STOP NORMAL AGING

This article, YOU CAN STOP “NORMAL” AGING – by Dr. Henry S. Lodge, shows the importance of EXERCISE & LOVE to the health of individual cells of your body!

Form your body’s point of view, “normal” aging isn’t normal at all. It’s a choice you make by the way you live your life. The other choice is to tell your cells to grow – to build a strong, vibrant body and mind.

Let’s have a look at standard American aging. Barbara D. had a baby when she was 34, gave up exercise and gained 50 pounds. Exhausted and depressed, Barbara thought youth, energy and optimism were all in her rearview mirror. Jon M., 55, had fallen even farther down the slippery slope. He was stuck in the corporate world of stress, long hours and doughnuts. At 255 pounds, he had knees that hurt and a back that ached. He developed high blood pressure and eventually diabetes. Life was looking grim.

Jon and Barbara weren’t getting old; they had let their bodies decay. Most aging is just the dry rot we program into our cells by sedentary living, junk food and stress. Yes, we do have to get old, and ultimately we do have to die. But out bodies are designed to age slowly and remarkably well. Most of what we see and fear is decay, and decay is only one choice. Growth is the other.

After two years of misery, Barbara started exercising and is now in the best shape of her life. She just finished a sprint triathlon and, at 37, feels like she is 20. Jon started eating better and exercising too – slowly at first, but he stuck with it. He has since lost 50 pounds, the pain in his knees and back has disappeared, and his diabetes is gone. Today, Jon is 60 and living his life in the body of a healthy 30-year-old. He will die one day, but he is likely to live like a young man until he gets there.

The hard reality of our biology is that we are built to move. Exercise is the master signaling system that tells our cells to grow instead of fade. When we exercise, that process of growth spreads throughout every cell in our bodies, making us functionally younger. Not a little bit younger – a lot younger. True biological aging is a surprisingly slow and graceful process. You can live out your life in a powerful, healthy body if you are willing to put in the work.

Let’s take a step back to see how exercise works at the cellular level. Your body is made up of trillions of cells that live mostly for a few weeks or months, die and are replaced by new cells in an endless cycle. For example, your taste buds live only a few hours, white blood cells live 10 days, and your muscle cells live about three months. Even your bones dissolve and are replaced, over and over again. A few key stem cells in each organ and your brain cells are the only ones that stick around for the duration. All of your other cells are in a constant state of renewal.

You replace about 1% of your cells every day. That means 1% of your body is brand-new today, and you will get another 1% tomorrow. Think of it as getting a whole new body every three months. It’s not entirely accurate, but it’s pretty close. Viewed that way, you are walking around in a body that is brand-new since Christmas (article appeared in March 2007) new lungs, new liver, new muscles, new skin. Look down at your legs and realize that you are going to have new ones by the Fourth of July. Whether that body is functionally younger or older is a choice you make by how you live.

You choose whether those new cells come in stronger or weaker. You choose whether they grow or decay each day from then on. Your cells don’t care which choice you make. They just follow the directions you send. Exercise, and your cells get stronger; sit down, and they decay.

Men like Jon, who go from sedentary to fit, cut their risk of dying from a heart attack by 75% over five years. Women cut their risk by 80% -- and heart attacks are the largest single killer of women. Both men and women can double their leg strength with three months of exercise, and most of us can double it again in another three months. This is true whether you’re in your 30% or your 90%. It’s not a miracle or a mystery. It’s your biology, and you’re in charge.

The other master signal to our cells—equal and, in some respects, even more important than exercise—is emotion. One of the most fascinating revelations of the last decade is that emotions change our cells through the same molecular pathways as exercise. Anger, stress and loneliness are signals for “starvation” and chronic danger. They “melt” our bodies as surely as sedentary living. Optimism, love and community trigger the process of growth, building our bodies, hearts and minds.

Men who have a heart attack and come home to a family are four times less likely to die of a second heart attack. Women battling heart disease or cancer do better in direct proportion to the number of close friends and relatives they have. Babies in the ICU who are touched more often are more likely to survive. Everywhere you look, you see the role of emotion/love in our biology. Like exercise, it’s a choice.

’s hard to exercise every day. And with our busy lives, it’s even harder to find the time and energy to maintain relationships and build communities. But it’s worth it when you consider the alternative. Go for a walk or a run, and think about it. Deep in our cells, down at the level of molecular genetics, we are wired to exercise and to care. We’re beginning to wake up to that as a nation, but you might not want to wait. You might want to join Barbara, Jon and millions of others and change your life. Start today. Your cells are listening.

Dr. Henry S. Lodge is on the faculty of Columbia Medical School and is co-author of “Younger Next Year”….

I Love You ....

Love needs to be EXPRESSED, especially in marriage relationships.

From the newspaper this articles comes from Tokyo:

Aging Japanese husbands struggle to breathe life back into their marriages:

Mitsutoshi Fukatsu has been with his wife for three decades, but their lives have grown apart. As a busy stationmaster in central Japan, he has usually come home only to eat, bathe and sleep.

Now with retirement looming, the 56-year-old wants to get to know his wife better. He started calling her by her name, Setsuko, instead of just grunting. And he says he recently learned a new phrase: "I Love You."

Fukatsu is among a small but growing group of men who took part in Japan's second annual "Beloved Wives Day" last week in hopes of salvaging their marriages by doing something different -- paying attention to their wives.

"For about a year now, I've been starting to help out with the housework," Fukatsu said. "I can't stay at my company forever. I have to return home. But right now, I don't feel like I have a place there."

Last year, the Japan Adoring Husbands Association set itself up and designated January 31 as a day for men to return home at the unusually early hour of 8 p.m., look into their wives' eyes and say, "Thank you."

The movement is small--about 230 people posted messages on the group's Web page about this year's event. But it represents quite a change for a generation of Japanese men taught to care about their companies first and their wives a distant second.

Among the forces driving the change are demographics and money. This year, the first postwar baby boomers will reach 60 and retire, meaning an unprecedented number of men will have to abandon their home-away-from-home -- the all-consuming office -- and spend more time with their wives.

Meanwhile, an impending law change gives a housewife a bigger share of her husband's pension, which could trigger a surge in divorces as long-neglected women take the money and run. (Japan's divorce rate is relatively low but the numjer has increased more than 60% from 1985 to 2005. Divorce among those married for more than 20 years has grown the fastest, nearly doubling since 1985, with separation more likely to be initiated by women. That leaves their ex-husbands to face a lonely old age in a country where the average malelifespan is over 78, one of the world's longest.

Sadao Ito, 67, wishes he had been more sensitive to his wife's feelings. She left him seven years ago, just as he was facing retirement from a busy office job in the northern city of Sendai. Even the couple's daughter and two sons blame him for the breakup, Ito said.

"My wife took care of me so well. She made me breakfast every day, and did all the housework. But I never did anything in return," he said. Ito now acts as a volunteer advisor to the Adoring Husbands Association.

"Repent, repent, repent. That what I do every day," Ito said. "My wife didn't take a single family album with her. I realized then that I had driven her away."

Tsumagoi is marketing itself as a romantic destination for married couples. Last year, it invited couples to an event called "Shout Your Love from the Middle of a Cabbage Patch" -- where husbands took turns hollering romantic messages in Tsumagoi's wide open fields. About 100 people came.

That was where the stationmaster finally told his wife, "Aishiteru" (I love you) -- rehearsing it 20 times.

"I had never told Setsuko I love her -- not like that. But now I want to say it more often...It feels nice," he said.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY . . .

February 14th is always VALENTINE'S DAY in America . . . It's a special day to recognize the people in our lives that we love.

THE STORY OF VALENTINE’S DAY . . . .

On Valentine’s Day we give cards, cookies, and candy to the people we like. In school, children decorate their classrooms with red hearts. They give valentines to their friends.

But do you know why we celebrate Valentine’s Day?

Long ago, in the city of Rome, there lived a man named Valentine. He was kind and all the children loved him. One day, the King of Rome made a law. He said, “All young men will be in my army. They cannot ever get married.” The young men and women were very sad.

Valentine tried to help the young men and women and married several couples in secret. The King became very angry and threw Valentine in jail. The children were sad to see Valentine in jail. They made cards and wrote letters and sent them to Valentine.

One little girl, who was blind, brought food to Valentine. He thanked her and prayed for her. Then a miracle happened. The little girl could see! Valentine sent the girl a letter and signed it, “From Your Valentine.”

On February 14th, we remember Valentine. All over the world, people send cards called “Valentines” to celebrate this special day.

On VALENTINE’S DAY we show our LOVE for our friends and family with gifts and cards. And, like Valentine and the children of Rome, we remember that ALL GOD’S CHILDREN should LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

I believe that the POWER of LOVE is the greatest POWER on EARTH. My "valentine" to you will be some poems and song lyrics about LOVE that follow ....

LOVE YOU,

Miss Becky

The ART of LOVE

The story of love is an endless story and love as a force is an inexhaustible power.

The love story of the universe is written by the simple acts of millions of characters. The compassion of visiting a sick friend. The joy of playing on the floor with a small child. Doing an act of kindness for a person who is having a hard time. Remembering a birthday with a surprise. Reaching out to help someone in need. Making a sacrifice for a good cause.

The great love story is not fiction, but fact. It is a huge book full of the goodness of people loving people.

LOVE IS LIKE MAGIC!

Love is like magic and it always will be,

For love still remains life’s sweet mystery.

Love works in ways so wondrous and strange

And there’s nothing in life that love cannot change!

Love can transform the most commonplace

Into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace.

Love is unselfish, understanding and kind,

For it sees with its heart and not with its mind.

Love is the answer that everyone seeks…

Love is the language that every heart speaks.

Love can’t be bought, it is priceless and free,

Love, like pure magic, is life’s sweet mystery!

SHOWER THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE WITH LOVE

You can play the game and you can act out the part but you know it wasn’t written for you

But tell me how can you stand there with your broken heart ashamed of playing the fool,

One thing can lead to another it doesn’t take any sacrifice,

Oh father and mother and sister and brother, if it feels nice don’t think twice,

Just shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Things are gonna work out fine if you only will, do as I say

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way you feel

Things are gonna be much better if you only will.

You can run but you cannot hide this is why we know

What you plan do with your foolish pride when you’re all by yourself alone

Once you tell somebody the way that you feel, you can feel it beginning to ease.

I think it’s true what they say about the squeaky wheel always getting the grease.

Better to shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Things are gonna work out fine if you only will, what I like to do to you,

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way you feel

Things are gonna be much better if you only will

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel

Shower the people, Shower the people, Shower the people, Shower the people…..

Native American (Indian) Marriage Blessing

May the fires of your love

Keep you happy and warm;

May the strength of your love

Keep you safe from all harm.

May the light of your love

Guide your pathways together.

May the joy of your love

Keep you happy forever.

Baylor's Happiest Day

This is an e-mail message written to our family by Jason, the day after Ken/Smiley's heart attack ...

I thought we should all start feeling a little better today. Dad is in good hands and resting well. He should be home by Wednesday. I was reading Mom's email and thought I would go ahead and share Baylor's experience this weekend. I know Dad loved hearing about it.

Happiest Day of My Life. That's what Baylor said about May 6th.

To set the stage if I haven't already told you about his competitive baseball team here in Logan they have really struggled. In Maryland Baylor would have had to try-out to be on the 9 year old travel team and he would have made it and been a good player on a pretty good team.

Well here in Logan we show up for the first practice with this 9 year old travel team and I thought we stumbled into a t-ball team on accident. Nobody would play catch with Baylor because they all were afraid of how hard he throws. It's all perspective - he isn't a phenom - these kids just haven't played much ball.

Without too much detail that gives you the setting for this team. I should also add that while we are still struggling the boys are getting better and we have won 2 out of 10 games and were close in 2 others. In fact in our second game on Saturday we played a team that beat us 14 to 1 earlier in the year and this weekend we played them even most of the game until we gave up a big inning and lost by 6 runs.

That's the team experience. The personal side of this is that Baylor is the new kid in town and these guys on his team think he is a baseball phenom - which he isn't - and is going to win all these games for them. They have been good to him, but he has felt the pressure. Even the coaches expected a lot from him as a pitcher because he could throw so much better than the other boys.

But, he has not pitched much in his short career and not off of a pitching mound like they do in this league. So he has started slow. His first 3 starts he was only in for 2 innings each. The first time he really struggled. The second start (our other win) he did better, but still struggled. His 3rd start he actually pitched quite well for 2 innings, but we were getting killed because his defense behind him couldn't get any outs.

He really wants to be able to pitch and so he has worked on it a lot. He will ask me almost everyday - whether his team has had practice or not - to come out and catch for him.

Saturday, May 6th, Lundstrom Park in Logan - beautiful day and we are the first game of the day on the field so it is in great shape. We are playing the Bandits. A team from Farmington that is pretty good. In fact we lost to their 8 year old team - this is their 9 year old team so they have got to be favored to win.

If you think you don't like baseball, you haven't seen a game like this. Both teams played well and it was close all the way. Most of these games only go 3-4 innings because either the mercy rule is invoked or both teams are scoring so much the innings take a long time.

This game went to 6 innings because both teams were pitching and playing defense well. Baylor was throwing better than he ever had. Still too many walks, but way more strikes than he has thrown. In this league if he throws strikes he can get strike-outs or if he gets hit they are usually very playable ground balls.

We are the home team and start the 6th inning (and final inning) with the lead 3-2. 3 outs and we win and Baylor pitches his first complete game. He looks stronger than ever in striking out the first two batters. He gets the third batter to hit an easy grounder to third - one of those soft ones that isn't even going to make it to the infield dirt. Our third baseman comes charging in at it and runs right by it when trying to scoop it up.

I don't know if it was mental - knowing the game should have been over - or physical - just being tried from having thrown so many pitches, but Baylor couldn't keep it going and walked the next 3 batters. The coach brought in another pitcher to try to close it out, but before we got the third out the Bandits scored 3 runs.

What a great game he pitched. He either struck out or put-out (fielded balls hit to him) 12 of the 18 outs we got in that game. Even if we had lost I think he would have felt OK about his pitching. He should have felt great, but you can't feel great when you lose the lead in the last inning. When he came out I told him how well he had played and told him not to get down because he would still have a chance to help his team win.

So, it is the bottom of the last inning and we are now losing 5-3. First, batter gets on with a walk. Next batter gets a good hit and we now have 2 runners on. They advance to 2nd and 3rd on steals and the runner on 3rd scores on a past ball. 5-4.

The batter at the plate stikes out. The next batter walks and then steals second so we have 2nd and 3rd again. Our next batter hits a grounder to second which they take to first to get the out while our guys scores from 3rd. So, its 5-5 and 2 outs. If the inning ends the game is over as a tie, but a tie is not appealing with how hard they have worked on this game.

The next batter gets a walk giving us 1st and 3rd and bringing Baylor to the plate. Our guy on first steals 2nd. Baylor has the count at 2-2 and it really becomes a battle. Their pitcher fires a strike in there and Baylor fouls it off. Another good pitch and another foul ball. Another good pitch coming to the plate and this one Baylor is all over. Line drive to right-center driving in the winning runs!

The kids on the team charged him out on the infield and had a good celebration, but they did a good job not getting silly with it. The coaches got them together pretty quick to give the other team a cheer and shake their hands. While they are doing all the end of game stuff I am cleaning up our stuff getting ready to leave. Baylor is getting so much attention from everybody that I just stay back and let him enjoy it.

After a while people start drifting away and the dugout starts to empty. So I head in to give him my congratulations and what I got was a moment that is one of the happiest of my life. When Baylor saw me he literally jumped into my arms and said "Dad, did you see that!"

Baylor and I get along great, but he is getting to be big guy now and is more reserved with his displays of affection. This was like when he was a little guy and would come running when he saw me. It was such pure, innocent joy that he wanted so much to share with me. I told him I sure did and how awesome he played and how exciting it was that he got that chance to help his team one last time.

We obviously relived the game a lot that afternoon and it was at a reflective moment he looked at me and said, "This is the happiest day of my life." I could just feel the weight of the being the new kid and all the pressure being gone from his body. I was so happy for him.

That night as I tucked him into bed and we talked about it one more time I told him that as amazing as this day was, he will have better days. He had a hard time believing me, but we talked about what many happy days he has ahead of him in his life. Then I told him that I have made big plays for my team and I'd give every one of them back for that hug he gave me in the dugout.

With that experience and then having to take Dad to the hospital last night in a very distressed situation the gamut of life experiences has hit home this weekend. Thank God for those choice moments we get that can stay with us always. Those you can take with you. Get as many of them as you can!

A Time to Heal ... a LOVE story from September 11th

Dearest Friends . . .

This is one of the "Love Letters" that I sent to our Chinese Friends after September 11, 2001 (so some of you may have already read it). But it is a wonderful TRUE story showing the power of love. We never know what can happen to those we love and when a couple marry they promise to love and help each other, regardless what happens. This story also helps us realize the impact of 9/11 in the lives of individual people. As you read this article, note all the different people who "helped" this lady, especially the medical people.

I would like to dedicate this story to all our Chinese MEDICAL friends who are dedicating their lives to the service of others ... it's not an easy thing to do and it can be very difficult at times. But you can and are making an important difference in the world, one person at a time, and you are loved for it.

A TIME TO HEAL, by Greg Manning (Reader's Digest, April 2002) A picture of the couple is attached.

At eight o'clock on the morning of September 11, 2001, my wife, Lauren, was a vibrant, athletic and beautiful woman, the picture of health. At about 8:30 am she breezed through our living room, saying how she'd solved a scheduling problem, making business calls that delayed her departure about 15 minutes. She lingered in the hallway, saying goodbye to our ten-month-old son, Tyler. Then she headed off to work, in a taxi to the World Trade Center, where she was (and is) a senior vice president and director of global sales data for the Cantor Fitzgerald Company.

Less than 20 minutes later, as I was listening to the radio I heard "What's this? A plane hit the World Trade Center?" Running to the terrace of our apartment, I looked down toward the Twin Towers. At the top of Tower One, I saw a vast hole billowing black smoke. I could see that a plane had hit at or just below Cantor's offices and that the impact had been huge. I kept calling Lauren's phone numbers, but her office line was busy and her cell phone wasn't ringing. I paced the apartment, pounding the wall.

Then I watched as the second plane hit Tower Two, seemingly right at the 84th floor, my office at Euro Brokers, where I was a senior vice president. Part of me was in shock: I'd been scheduled to attend a conference that morning at Windows on the World on the 107th floor.

Friends and family began calling our home to make sure we were all right. I couldn't say whether Lauren was alive; I was almost certain she was dead.

But she wasn't.

Arriving at the World Trade Center, she'd heard a whistling sound, entered the lobby to investigate and been met by anexplosive fireball. She ran outside in flames. A salesman saw her and two others running from the building. He raced across the street to her and put out the flames that were consuming her. Lauren was lucid enough to tell the man her name and number. People had fled, and there was no one else around for blocks. As heavy steel debris fell from a thousand feet above them, the man stayed with Lauren until the ambulance came.

At about 9:35 am our phone rang. A breathless voice said, "Mr. Manning, I'm with your wife. She's been badly burned, but she's going to be okay. We got her in an ambulance." Then the phone cut off. I learned later that this man had saved Lauren's life.

Twenty minutes later a nurse called to tell me Lauren was at St. Vincent's Hospital, eight blocks away. Fighting tears, not knowing what to expect, I made my way there through the stunned crowds. I found Lauren in a bed on the tenth floor, all but her face draped in white sheets. Her skin looked deeply tanned. Her eyebrows had been burned off and her beautiful blond hair was charred. The first think she said to me was "Get me to a burn unit."

Then she said, "Greg, I was on fire. I ran out. I prayed to die. Then I decided to live for Tyler and you." She asked me to apply balm to her blistered lips. Her pain grew and she begged for morphine. She became less aware, and her face began to swell from the IV fluids she was receiving. They transferred her to a private room and asked me to step out. For the next two hours the nurses dressed her wounds.

At five that afternoon, a bed was found for her in the Burn Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Lauren was taken to a glass-walled room on the eighth floor, where doctors and nurses surrounded her bed. Someone let me to the waiting room down the hall. Heartbroken and desperate, I sagged into a chair.

Lauren had been burned over 82 percent of her body--the majority of her burns third-degree.

HANGING IN THERE . . . With the city locked down, home seemed far away, unreachable. Joyce, Tyler's Nanny (a nanny is a person hired to care for children in their own homes) stayed with our son that night while I dozed in the waiting room in case I was called to Lauren's bedside.

On Wednesday, Lauren's parents arrived from Savannah, Georgia. They would end up staying with us for the next three months, giving us a major assist. Lauren's sister came in from New Jersey and her brother from North Carolina. I asked my own family in Florida--my parents and my sister--to remain at home for the time being; I didn't have a place for them to stay, and I promised to keep them posted on Lauren's condition.

On Thursday a gray-haired man in a white coat met me in the waiting room. Dr. Roger Yurt was the director of the Burn Center and Lauren's doctor. In a calm voice he described exactly what she was up against. The first 72 hours were the resuscitation phase, during which she was receiving an extraordinary amount of fluids to replace those she was losing through her wounds. She was heavily sedated and would remain in a drug-induced coma for weeks. She was on a ventilator to support her breathing and there was a feeding tube in her nose.

Once Lauren was resuscitated, Dr. Yurt said he would perform numerous grafts to close her wounds and control her injury. Only after she was "closed" would she be out of danger; until then, infection would be a constant threat. The prognosis was bleak, but I felt the first twinge of hope. If anyone on this earth could save Lauren, I thought, Dr. Yurt was the onel.

On Saturday night, September 15, another critical burn patient died, reducing by one the large group of shattered families that had been bonding (getting acquainted and learning to love and support each other) in the waiting room since September 11th. Dr. Palmer Q. Bessey, Yurt's associate director, came out to deliver the news to that patient's family. Later on, he saw me, "She's hanging in there pretty well," he said. "She's going to get sicker before she gets better." Then he added, "But we're going to do everything we can to pull her through. I don't want those bastards to get another person."

On Sunday, September 16, I was told that Lauren's chances were less than 50/50--probably far less. (I was to learn later they were about 15 percent.) I found solace with a rabbi (Jewish priest or church leader) who had come to the Burn Center, and at my request he came in to Lauren's room so that she might hear the holy language and know we were praying for her. That night another World Trade Center burn patient died.

Day after day family, friends and colleagues called from around the world. It grew difficult to repeat the full story, yet I realized that the short version seemed little more than a medical update and that it said nothing of Lauren's courage. So I began writing e-mails. I told everyone about her skin-graft surgeries. I explained how her greatest injuries were to her hands, especially her dominant left hand. Mostly I told everyone how hard Lauren was fighting--about the bravery I saw every day as I sat beside her bed. And as a token of my faith in her, I signed every e-mail the same way: "Love, Greg & Lauren."

CRITICAL CONDITION . . . October 7, 2001. The doctors have done extensive skin grafts on Lauren's back, legs, and left arm and hand. The donor skin was harvested from some undamaged areas of her body--in one case, her scalp. (The scalp is a good choice cosmetically, as the hair grows back to cover any scars.) I've learned that about 80 to 90 percent of these early grafts have now adhered. Though Lauren is still in highly critical condition, this is excellent news.

She remains in a drug-induced coma, but she was more responsive yesterday morning than she has been so far. In the afternoon she was taken to the tank, the room where patients are given a bath that helps remove burned tissue and promote healing. When I saw her back in her room afterward, Lauren's eyes were moving slightly beneath her lids. Her features were becoming more defined, and there are fewer bandages on her face. As one of the nurses put it, "That face is pink," meaning the skin is recovering nicely.

I sat in a chair and looked at my wife. She is largely immobilized and hasn't spoken for nearly four weeks. Time has begun to add up. After taking care of Tyler in the morning, I'm here every day--as are her mom and dad and sister on weekends. But Lauren hasn't truly been around for almost a month.

Her injuries have sent her on a journey far away. We've been trying to get her back, and she has been struggling to come back since. When I see her eyelids move, or her lips, or her arm, I know she's feeling something. I'm incredibly impatient to hear about things from her side.

Lauren's nurse last night was a man who had once studied to be a Catholic priest. He told me that the period since September 11 has changed everyone on the Burn Center staff, just as it's changed the lives of the patients and their families. When he gets tired, he said, he can go home and sleep--while the patients he's treating must struggle 24 hours, 7 days every week.

Since he hadn't heard it before, I told him our story of the morning of September 11. It dawned on me that Lauren probably could not drop and roll (we teach people in America to "drop and roll" if their clothes are on fire to put out the fire as quickly as possible) after she ran from the lobby, (a question that has nagged at me), because she had to keep running away from the flames that carried down the outside of Tower One--meaning she may have been even braver and tougher than I'd thought.

I said to the nurse, "God has something in mind for her." He said he believed that too. Afterward I sat by Lauren's bed, stroking her hair. And I thanked God for every single moment that we still had a glimmer of hope.

To be continued . . . Since this is so long, I'll continue the article in the next letter . . .

Love to all of you!

Miss Becky

A Time to Heal ... continued

Here is the continuation of the true story, "A Time to Heal", about Greg & Lauren, (pictured below) who both worked in the World Trade Center, but only Lauren was there the morning of September 11th. Fortunately, she was late for work that day, but was burned badly and is still in the hospital fighting for her life. Here the story continues:

COMING AROUND . . . mid-to-late October 2001. The doctors have been backing off on Lauren's sedation, slowly bringing her back toward awareness. On the 13th, I saw her try to form words. She wasn't able to make any sounds; her vocal cords could not vibrate because the tracheal rube diverted air away from her larynx. But she was doing more than breathing reflexively. Her mouth opened wide and her lower jaw moved slightly to the side, as if she were pausing before trying to speak.

Then, when I reached the hospital on the 14th, her eyes were open. Not just a bit, but most of the way. The swelling that was present in her face just days earlier was mostly gone, and she looked more like herself than at any point since September 11. I leaned over, looked her right in the eyes and said, "Honey, it's Greg, and I love you."

Her eyes moved ever so slightly, and then the barest, most subtle upturn came at the corners of her mouth; Lauren was trying to smile. I told her again that I loved her and that Tyler loved her. Then I said, "It's great to see you," and I burst into tears--the first happy tears for what seemed like a thousand years.

For more than a month, what mattered when I walked into her room were her blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs as they appeared on the screens above and beside her bed. I would also get a report from the nurse. Then I would know how she was doing, and whether it was time to play a CD or pick up a book and start reading to her.

Now the screens and the numbers aren't the focus anymore. The focus is her face, her eyes and her perfect teeth, visible again now that the ventilator tube is out of her mouth (she had a tracheostomy recently so that a breathing tube could be inserted in her neck). Most of all, as of today, there's the way she can shape her features to try to communicate. She made it clear that she was smiling. Several times the smile worked its way into her cheekbones and her eyes gently narrowed.

There was a hint of the other difficult aspect of the journey. Twice, tears were visible in her eyes--once when her nurse spoke to her of how lucky she was, and the other time when I listed the people who were praying for her and rooting for her.

I had a lot to tell her: Tyler has taken his first stumble-steps. He was holding on to the babyproofed coffee table, saw his bouncy seat, let go of the table, took two steps, and made it to the bouncy seat. He has no fear of walking, that's certain; in a way, he was just like his mother. She took her first steps back from a dream, and he took his first free steps on his own.

On October 27, Tyler celebrated his first birthday. I threw a party for him and 11 or 12 of his closest friends at our home. Lauren was, but now, far more aware. On October 30, I asked her if she wanted to see the video of the baby's birthday, and she immediately nodded yes. So I held out the camcorder and played the video. And I watched her smiling as she looked at her son.

NEW STRIDES . . . Early November 2001. With Lauren's limited ability to communicate, her eyes have become very expressive. She grins and her eyes widen when she thinks something is fun. I've also become aware of how expressive hand gestures are--even with her hands in splints wrapped to her arms with gauze.

Itching has become a real problem. It's what happens when burns heal, and Lauren has it all over her body. Of course, we can't scratch; her skin is too delicate and in the process of some serious healing. The nurses order Benadryl and a special cream to help stop the itching. We can also tap our fingertips on the area, though after her most recent surgery some of these spots are under think dressings. All in all, Lauren is handling the situation okay.

Her determination is strong. With instruction and coaching from the physical and occupational therapists, she does arm range-of-motion exercises, lifting both arms in a coordinated fashion. She also does exaggerated facial expressions for reebad and scar control. When she first winked at me, I wondered why. Then she slinked the other eye, opened her mouth, puffed her cheeks and raised her eyebrows. She also works her legs, all while lying in a critical-care bed.

Then came something incredible. When I entered her room on November 11, Lauren said, "Hi, Greg." It was the softest whisper, and I wasn't even sure I'd heard it; took a second to register that the rush of air had been my name. I said, "Are you talking?" And her eyes smiled as she whispered, "Yes."

I looked at her and said, "That's wonderful. I am so ..." The lump in my throat stopped me for a moment. I took off my glasses, dried my eyes and told her the word I'd meant to say; "happy."

Lauren could talk because she had received a smaller tracheal tube, which could be capped. I was able to lean close to her and understand her perfectly. Even though she speaks with only a windy whisper, she sounds like herself--so she has made another enormous leap to reclaim who she is.

We talked about Tyler. She told me she loved the tape of his birthday party, one of the first things I'd shown her after she truly woke up. We spoke about many things, but especially about how wonderful it was just to be able to communicate, we got a big chunk of our relationship back right then.

Soon after that came another milestone: Lauren took her first steps. I arrived at the hospital about three seconds after it happened. In actual linear measurements, there were not strides but mere shuffles. She was helped into a sitting position, placed her feet on the floor, shuffled a couple of feet to the lounge chair and sat down.

When I entered her room, Lauren was seated there, surrounded by her court of occupational and physical therapists and attendant family members. The window curtain was up, and on this impossibly sunny autumn afternoon in New York the room glowed with the happiness of everyone within. Lauren's accomplishments were described to me . . . And when she saw me, she gave me her best smile.

A little later, when the therapists were gone and she was back in her bed, she started to ask me what happened on September 11. Her first question: "Was it an act of terror?" I told her yes. Anger and anguish flooded her face. She screamed softly, "I'm going to get those bastards," and beat her right forearm, in its cast, into the bed, as if pounding her attackers.

I said firmly, Lauren, listen to me: George W. Bush declared war on the terrorists and any country that harbors them. The United States has gone to war to get the people who did this to you.

She went on. She remembered that the World Trade Center looked as if it would fall. She asked me, "Was anyone hurt at Cantor?" (Cantor was the company she worked for, whose office was very near the place where the plane hit the building. Had she been in her office, she would have died as well.) Yes, I said.

"Did people die?" Yes.

"Anyone I know?"

Forgive me, but right then and there I lied to Lauren; I told her, I'm not sure. I didn't think she needed the entire load dropped on her right then: that her boss and 657 other Cantor employees had died without hope of rescue.

I said, Let's talk about that another time. And she agreed to wait.

(To be continued)

A Time to Heal ... the conclusion

This will complete the story "A Time to HEAL" about how Lauren Manning recovers from her injuries on September 11th . . . now to finish the story . . . a real true LOVE story.

HE GORGEOUS -- Mid-November 2001. By now Lauren has received skin grafts on her back from the base of her neck to her Achilles tendon. Her doctor has told me that her burn area has been reduced from 82.5 percent to 8 or 9 percent. Yes, just 8 or 9 percent. I feel like repeating that 100 times slowly. This is a credit to luck, fate, destiny, health, genetics, surgical skill and prayer. The single digits--they're where we want to be!

Lauren also had her trach tube removed. When I saw her on November 14, for the first time since September 11 she didn't have a blue hose running from her mouth or her neck to a ventilator or to a gas connection in the wall. Instead, foam dressings covered the healing wound. I said, No trach--you must be talking. She said yes.

Her voice sounded hoarse and congested, as if she had a bad cold. But it was her voice, not a whisper. Occasionally air would leak out below the dressings, and we would have to press down on them so that she could speak without any interruption (her voice would go on and off, like bad cell-phone connection).

I told her it was really great to hear her sounding like herself. And I said that I'd never suspended her cell phone, paying the bill just so I could still hear her regular voice on her message announcement. She told me, largely in her regular voice, that I was nuts.

For the first time, I fed Lauren her dinner. It resembled a meal you would see in a '60's film about deep space --three colors of gruel in different triangular sections of the plate. Yet it was a crowning achievement of hospital cuisine--pureed (make it liquid) everything so that Lauren eat it: chicken, mashed potatoes and a vegetable that apparently tasted good.

Then it came time for Tyler's first visit to the hospital. Lauren prepared for it like nothing else in her life. Her mother washed and blow-dried Lauren's hair and put lipstick on her lips. Her father went out and bought her favorite perfume so that Tyler would be more familiar with her scent after all this time. With Tyler now walking on his own, Lauren asked us to bring his lawn-mower push toy. And she wanted to wear a baseball cap so that she would look "more normal."

I entered her room before the visit to make sure she was ready. Lauren was seated in a lounge chair in her blue patient gown, sheets across her lap and a towel scented with perfume across her shoulders. Thought her forearms and hands were still in splints and casts, her smiling face peeked out at me beneath the brim of a baseball cap.

In the waiting room, Joyce, our nanny (lady hired to care for children) was with Tyler. I returned to find him at the center of a crowd or nurses and therapists, all waving and smiling at him. I had the video camera with me, so I filmed Lauren. Her mother wheeled her out of her room, turned the corner of the Burn Center, and came down the hall toward the waiting room.

Tyler was suddenly turned loose. And then he was pushing his lawn-mower toy toward his mother. Lauren could not touch Tyler because of the risk of infection, and he could not touch her. So instead of placing him on her lap, he was picked up and held near her. And Lauren, overwhelmed by happiness, said hello to him through her tears.

Tyler showed some fear at first. The staff psychologist had warned us that he would probably not recognize his mother and might be quite frightened. But he cried twice, got past it, and then he knew her. Whether it was the perfume or her voice of her face; whether it was he smile or whether he recognized her from all the photos we've shown him, he knew her. When we asked him, "Where's Mommy?" he looked at Lauren.

Tyler is a miracle. Yes, I'm his dad. But today, just shy of 13 months, he showed poise. He pushed his lawn mower back and forth across the floor, and Lauren got to see exactly what she had lived for. She kept looking at me and saying, "He's gorgeous."

There was a song she used to sing to him; I tried to sing it on her behalf but couldn't get through the first line. With Joyce pressing down on the dressings at the base of Lauren's neck so that air wouldn't hiss out of her chest, Lauren sang:

I love you in the morning and in the afternoon.

I love you in the evening and underneath the moon,

I love you, I love you, oh yes I really do,

I love you oh my darling through and through.

She made it all the way to the end. And Tyler started to dance. Kneeling, he shook his body to the music. I told him afterward, "Today you made your mother as happy as you may ever make anyone."

MOVING ON . . . Early December 2001. If you were outside in New York recently, maybe you were touched by the same breezes that touched Lauren as she sat in her wheelchair, out by the hospital's black steel benches, the grass and the tree-lined traffic circle. "I was outside--I breathed fresh air," she said. "There's a whole world out there I want to reconnect to."

Which she'll be doing shortly, when she leaves here and heads to the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, N.Y. Her total rehab will take one to two years; Her hands are the real challenge because that's where her burns were the worst. In a recent surgery, the tip of her left index finger was amputated (cut off) because it was so severely damaged.

After dinner the other night, Lauren and I talked. Mostly she gave me a to-do list--train schedules, packing details, the logistics of getting home. In the middle of it, though, I looked at her. Her skin is far more pink than it was, and the formation of tiny scars drags a bit at her lower lip. But the expression in her eyes and her smile are the same. I said, "You are just amazing."

"Thanks for staying by my side," she said with emotion.

"I'll always be by your side," I said. "I'll take care of you."

Then she said that we should grow old together and die together. "Let's not rush that day," I told her. "But, yes, we will."

For Lauren's last day at the Burn Center--December 11--she chose a white T-shirt, red drawstring pants and her tan hat to wear. She had a pressure bandage around her face, and underneath her T-shirt was a Jobst vest, a compression garment that promotes healing and minimizes scarring. For much of the next year, Lauren will need to wear a full body suit of these pressure garments.

When Dr. Yurt came in to say goodbye, Lauren said simply, "Thank you. Thank you for saving my life." And she began sobbing. Dr. Yurt put his hand on her shoulder, comforting her in one of the kindest gestures I've seen from a doctor.

We packed the last of Lauren's things, and then everything was loaded onto a wheelchair as if it were an airport luggage cart. Because Lauren wasn't being wheeled out. She was walking out. I said goodbye to Lauren's nurse. I signed he discharge papers, and then two EMT's (Emergency Medical Technician) came down the hall. They would be talking Lauren to Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, but she would walk out the front door of the Burn Center herself.

And no sooner had the moment come than she raised her arms and said, "That's it. Ninety days to the day, and we're getting out of here." She started walking down the hall, accompanied by one EMT as the other followed . I trailed, pushing the wheelchair, and suddenly tears filled my eyes. Lauren was walking out, leading her entourage (group of people) into the future. She's a recovering patient, a miracle--all embodied in this five-foot-four-inch lady with her pressure garments, yoga outfit and hat.

I turned to Lauren's nurse, gave him a powerful hug and said, "Thank you for everything." He wished us good luck, and I continued down the hall. The physical and occupational therapists were all gathered at the front desk, and Lauren stopped to hug them. Then she walked out the front door, and we followed her. I leaned over to give her a gentle high-five.

Lauren left the hospital the same way she had entered--through the ambulance bay, where on September 11 people had stood in stunned silence as she was unloaded and rolled through the door amide a quiet so complete you could hear the wheels creaking. This time, as she went out the door and into the back of the ambulance, Lauren was waving joyfully to everyone around her and calling out their names.

* * * * *

This is the end of the story . . . but life continues for Lauren, as she works to get back the full use of her hands and body. This is a beautiful example of the power of love, true love. My wish for you all, is to have a special marriage partner, who will love you as much as you love them, and that you will both stand by and support each other in any situation that comes up in your life.

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED IS THE GREATEST JOY ON EARTH!

Love you,

Miss Becky

KINDNESS and LOVE . . .

KINDNESS provides a house, but LOVE makes a home.

Kindness packs an adequate sack lunch, but love puts a note of encouragement inside.

Kindness provides a television set or computer as a learning air, but love controls the remote control and cares enough to insist a child “sign off”.

Kindness sends a child to bed on time, but love tucks the covers around a child’s neck and provides a goodnight hug and kiss.

Kindness cooks a meal, but love selects the “your favorite foods” menu and lights the candles.

Kindness writes a thank-you note, but love thinks to include a joke or photograph or bookmark inside the envelope.

Kindness keeps a clean and tidy house, but love adds a bouquet of fresh flowers.

Kindness pours a glass of milk, but love occasionally adds a little chocolate sauce.

Kindness is doing what is decent, basic, courteous, and necessary for an even, smooth, and gentle flow of life.

Love is taking the extra step to make life truly exciting, creative and meaningful!

Love is what makes things special.

LOVE . . .

LOVE works in ways that are

wondrous and strange,

There's nothing in life that

LOVE can not change!

The Parable of the ROSE

THE PARABLE OF THE ROSE

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully and before it blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom and also the thorns. He thought, “How can any beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns?” Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose and before it was able to bloom, it died.

So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose – the God-like qualities planted in us at birth, growing amid the thorns of our faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us and eventually we die, never realizing our potential.

Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must show it to them. One of the Savior’s greatest characteristics was that He was able to show people the kingdom of heaven within them. He was able to reach past their thorns and show them the rose.

This is the characteristic of love – to look at a person and, knowing his faults, recognize the nobility in his soul and help him realize that he can overcome his faults. If we show him the rose, he will conquer the thorns and then he will blossom, bringing forth thirty, sixty, or an hundred-fold as it is given to him.

Our duty in this world is to help our brothers and sisters by showing them their roses and not their thorns.

A MIRACLE OF LOVE & MODERN MEDICINE

I stared at our seven-month-old baby girl, Chelsea, in the hospital crib. As I tucked up her blanket, my eyes rested on the old Dillon family Bible I kept in the crib with her. It had belonged to my grandmother, who died when I was thirteen. I cherished that Bible as I had cherished my grandmother. She always soothed my childhood hurts and fears; to this day I still missed her. The Bible had rested in her hands during her funeral service. My mother removed it just before the coffin lid was lowered and later gave it to me.

But even Grandmother probably could not have soothed the hurt and fear my husband, Lance, and I now faced. Earlier that day the specialists at University Medical Center in Tucson had finally diagnosed the baffling condition that was slowly but surely draining the life from our first child.

“Chelsea has an extremely rare birth defect called severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome,” our doctor informed us. “SCIDS interferes with the normal functioning of her immune system. She has virtually no natural defenses against infection. Her bone marrow doesn’t produce the necessary cells.”

I stood statue-still and stared at him . . . I had prayed that somewhere in the mighty arsenal of modern medicine was the right drug, the magic bullet that would cure her. The immunologist carefully explained that the only option was a bone marrow transplant – a risky procedure that at best had about a fifty percent chance of success.

The only option.

We needed to transfer her to a hospital that did this sort of operation as soon as possible, he had said. There were only a few in the entire country.

Now as I stood over Chelsea’s crib I smoothed the blanket and pushed the old Bible off to the side. It’s leather cover was worn soft with use. As my child slept I closed my eyes and hoped for a miracle.

The next day we decided on Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan (New York City) for the procedure because of their slightly-higher-than-average success rate. But now came the enormous problem of transporting Chelsea from Tucson (in Arizona in the south west of our country) to New York (in the northeast) without exposing her to many people. Chelsea couldn’t afford to catch even a cold. Any worsening in her condition would delay surgery. A simple flue bug could kill her.

Driving there was out of the question. She couldn’t be off her IV fluids for that long. Commercial airliners posed too much hazard of contracting contagious disease, and big airports were even worse. We needed a private plane, but Chelsea’s condition was not considered acutely critical – a criterion that had to be met before our insurance company would agree to cover the enormous cost of a jet. The catch-22 was that if Chelsea did become that critical, she would probably be too sick to have the surgery.

Lance and I were at wit’s end. We didn’t sleep, we barely ate. There had to be something we could do. We made countless phone calls. Finally we heard about a group called Corporate Angels, which provides free flights for sick children aboard private planes. The flights conduct normal business travel, and patients hitch along. Corporate Angels found us a flight leaving that Friday out of Denver bound nonstop for New York. A miracle was in our grasp.

“Dear God,” I prayed, “now please help us get to Denver. I know You have Your ways. We’ll just keep on trying.”

Denver (in Colorado) was too far to drive. We got the number of a private medevac (flies people with medical problems for a fee) company. Maybe we could pay for the flight ourselves. But when I talked to Judy Barrie, a paramedic whose husband, Jim, piloted the medevac plane, she gave me the bad news. “The flight will cost six thousand dollars, minimum,” she said. We didn’t have six thousand dollars. Our finances had been stretched to the limit.

I thanked Judy and said good-bye. “Wait,” she said suddenly as I was about to hang up. “I really want to help you. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk to Jim. Maybe he can figure this out.”

When I hung up I had the strangest feeling that these people would be able to do something about what was increasingly a hopeless situation. An hour later Jim Barrie called back. “Listen, I’ve got a friend flying back an empty plane from Phoenix (city in Arizona, not far from Tucson where they were) to Denver in the morning,” Jim told me. “If you can get to the field by six-thirty, you can hitch a ride.”

Perfect. Chelsea could handle the drive to Phoenix. But I was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Jim, what will it cost?”

“Cost? Heck, not a thing. This guy’s a friend, and he’s got to get his plane up there anyway.”

I was faint with relief. These total strangers had taken a huge step in saving the life of my child. I didn’t know what to say. The word thanks didn’t seem big enough.

“You could do us one little favor, though,” Jim added. “Judy and I would like to meet Chelsea.”

Chelsea was awake and even a bit playful when Jim and Judy arrived at the hospital. While Jim talked to Lance (her husband) about finding our way around the Phoenix airport, Judy and I chatted. Her eyes kept flitting over to the crib. Then I noticed she was staring at Grandma’s Bible. One time when Judy was leaning over Chelsea, her fingers brushed it. Finally, as they were about to go, Judy asked, “Where are you from?” I told her Pittsburgh (a city in a state near New York and very far from Arizona).

“I’m from Pittsburgh too,” she said slowly. “Well, the suburb Carnegie actually.”

“My mother is from Carnegie,” I said. I felt a shiver go through me. “Virginia Everett. Dillon was her maiden name.”

“Virginia Dillon?” Judy said, eyes wide. “My father was Howard Dillon.”

“Uncle Howard?” I was stunned.

Judy nodded. It was as if a current of electricity had jumped between us. Now I could see why her face had seemed faintly familiar. Judy Barrie was my cousin Judy Dillon. “I haven’t seen you since . . . ,” I stared to say. Judy’s eyes jumped again to the Bible.

“Since Grandma’s funeral twenty years ago,” she finished the sentence. “That’s the Bible she was holding.”

We fell into each other’s arms. I knew then that all would be well with Chelsea. The odds against this crossing of paths were simple too great. This was meant to be.

Chelsea got her bone marrow transplant and four months later she left the hospital with a healthy immune system. She is, as they say, a medical miracle.

And then there was the other miracle. I like to think of it as my grandmother’s miracle. In a sense, even twenty years after her funeral, she was reaching out to comfort me and assure me that with God all things are possible.

By Cheryl Deep

Comment: The power of love is no less potent than that of modern medicine. In the right hands, each serves as it’s own instrument of God’s healing.

Today's REAL HEROES . . .

For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column published in many newspapers across America called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Worth Reading!!!! Be sure to read to the end, as there he identifies the most important thing in life ... I know his statements are true and the principle of serving others has been a guiding light in my life.

Ben Stein's Last Column...

============================================

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

Fill the World with Love

Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love blesses both giver and receiver and resounds in hearts forever.

It's true that we're all born with differing interests and capacities, strengths and weaknesses. But one thing we all need is to receive and give love. We need it in order to grow into the kind of people we're capable of becoming more loving, more courageous, more loyal. All virtues have their root in love.

A father of modest means who has now passed on left little of the world's possessions behind, but he left a legacy of love that his family still cherishes. A mother who often feels inadequate, worrying that there's so much she cannot do well, knows she can nurture with love which is, after all, the most important gift she can give. Children remember warmly and clearly those loving moments long after they leave the home. Truly, we never forget love.

This old world, which has seen much of sorrow and suffering, much of tribulation and difficulty, needs love. It's so simple, so essential and although it's common sense, it's often not common practice. We can each do our part by filling our little corner of the world with love. We can join in the song by Leslie Bricusse, "Fill the World with Love":

"In the evening of my life I shall look to the sunset,

At the moment in my life when the night is due.

And the question I shall ask only I can answer:

Was I strong and brave and true,

Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?"

Music and the Spoken Word, May 7, 2006

Love In Any Language

This is a very powerful and meaningful song that expresses the feelings of my heart. It was sung and made popular by Sandi Patti.

Love In Any Language

Je t'aime

Te amo

Ya ti-bya lyu blyu

Ani o hev ot cha

I love you

The sounds are all as different

As the lands from which they came

And though the words are all unique

Our hearts are still the same

Love in any language

Straight from the heart

Pulls us all together

Never apart

And once we learn to speak it

All the world will hear

Love in any language

Fluently spoken here

We teach the young our differences

Yet look how we're the same

We love to laugh, to dream our dreams

We know the sting of pain

From Leningrad to Lexington

The farmer loves his land

And daddies all get misty-eyed

To give their daughter's hand

Oh maybe when we realize

How much there is to share

We'll find too much in common

To pretend it isn't there

Love in any language

Straight from the heart

Pulls us all together

Never apart

And once we learn to speak it

All the world will hear

Love in any language

Fluently spoken here

Tho' the rehtoric of government

May keep us worlds apart

There's no misinterpreting

The language of the heart

Love in any language

Straight from the heart

Pulls us all together

Never apart

And once we learn to speak it

All the world will hear

Love in any language

Fluently spoken here

I LOVE Life!!!!

I’ve just returned from my morning jog. It’s a beautiful spring day here in Cache Valley Utah. Logan, the city I live in, is located very close to the beautiful Rocky Mountains which I walk toward, until I arrive at Utah State University. I walk across the most beautiful part of the campus, by a fountain and across the tradition "Aggie Hill". Then I like to jog downhill around the Temple (a very special place to me) and pass many houses back to my home. The grass and trees are all so green at this time and there are many flowers in bloom.

I thank God everyday for the beautiful world He created for us and for allowing me to live in such a wonderful, clean place. I've been so blessed in my life and when I returned home today and saw this quote on my computer, it was just how I felt:

"I always danced when mere walking would have done, so glad was I of life, so full of health." --Josephine Demott Robinson

I always feel so good after jogging and my heart is full of gratitude to God for His many blessings to me and my family. Have a GREAT DAY, I'm going too!!!

LOVE is LIFE!!!

"The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it, from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love, because love is not just something that happens to you: It is a certain special way of being alive. Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life." --Thomas Merton

The ART of LOVE . . .

The story of love is an endless story and love as a force is an inexhaustible power.

The love story of the universe is written by the simple acts of millions of characters. The compassion of visiting a sick friend. The joy of playing on the floor with a small child. Doing an act of kindness for a person who is having a hard time. Remembering a birthday with a surprise. Reaching out to help someone in need. Making a sacrifice for a good cause.

The great love story is not fiction, but fact. It is a huge book full of the goodness of people loving people.