My parents came home late that night. My mom walked in with a bandage on her neck. She sat down and rested her head on my dad’s shoulder. It hurt so badly, she couldn’t even talk. My dad had to tell us what had happened. They had left the hospital all right, but after they had driven for just half an hour, the car broke down. My mom had to sit in a cold car while my dad walked to get help.
Later that night, Mom was in her room. She pulled out a bag and handed it to me. It was my birthday present, a Walkman.
“I’m sorry it’s not wrapped,” she said in a quiet, raspy voice. “And we didn’t have time to get batteries, but I’ll get some soon.”
“Thank you,” I said. That was all I could say.
About a week later the doctor called. It turned out that my mother’s condition was nothing serious. Everyone seemed relieved. Later my dad told me that the doctors had thought she might have cancer. I couldn’t believe it. My legs turned to Jell-O, and I had to sit down. Even though I knew she was all right, when I thought of what I had said and done, I felt sick. If she had gotten cancer, nothing in our lives would have ever been the same.
Less than a year later, my dad’s cousin, Nathan, was diagnosed with cancer. He had four kids and his wife was about to have another. He stayed alive just long enough to see his new baby’s birth, and then he died. Now his son will never be able to see or know his dad.
It’s scary to think how close I was to having the same thing happen to me and how selfish I had been. I will always regret the things I said. It is really true that you don’t appreciate something until you come close to losing it.
Diana Parker, age 12
The Flood
I woke up to the crash of thunder and the pitter-patter of rain. It was 3:43 A.M. Boom! Boom! Thunder was crashing as loud as a stereo with the volume turned up to the limit and the speaker held up to your ear. This didn’t alarm me, though, and I fell back to sleep. At 5:16 A.M., my father rushed into my room.
“Adam! Adam! Get up! We’re flooding! The basement is flooding!” he shouted.
Still groggy, I tried to ignore him, but he shook me by my shoulders. That got me up! Since I didn’t have time to change, I ran downstairs in my pajamas to the basement. It was a devastating sight.
The water had risen six inches already. My mother and I immediately started to pick things up off the floor and take them upstairs. I had no shoes on, and my feet were absolutely freezing.
My parents were quite upset, and they had a right to be. Within half an hour, the water was eighteen inches deep. Things would only get worse.
Within the next hour, we had moved everything that we could to the first floor. The computer, big-screen television and heavy boxes filled with our most valuable possessions were taken to safe ground. However, our piano, Ping-Pong table, sleeper sofa, laundry machine, dryer, furnace and water heater were all still down there—being destroyed.
During our final trip to the basement, we smelled a disgusting odor coming from the water near our bathroom. Our toilet downstairs looked like a geyser. Water was shooting out of the bowl at great speed. I rushed upstairs to try to call our neighbors, but the phones were dead. My mother waded over to their house, but soon returned, saying there was nothing we could do.
That was the hard part. Knowing that part of your home is being destroyed is bad enough, but realizing that you can’t do anything to stop it feels even worse. Most people don’t know how sickening the feeling of being totally helpless is. For the record, it’s horrible.
We all went out on the front porch. The water was rising outside, too. It was about four inches away from coming through our front door. When my parents saw this, they ran back inside. My mother told me to pack an overnight bag of clothes and valuables. With a lump in my throat, I knew what was happening.
I packed my stereo, CDs, baseball cards and a change of clothing. My mother rolled up her Oriental rugs and packed her china dishes. We carried everything out and put it on higher ground. My father was frantic. He had only enough time to pack clothes. It was really bad.
By the time we were ready to leave, water had come in our front door. Rescue rafts were floating in our streets. The basement was like a swimming pool—six feet of water, we would later learn. My parents weren’t crying, but they were praying. About half an hour later, our prayers were answered. It finally stopped pouring. We learned that the National Weather Service had declared the storm a flash flood.
When it was finally safe to walk outside, all the people in the neighborhood gathered at the street corner. The only positive thing that day was the corner gathering. Everybody bonded. Acquaintances became friends, friends became like family. People comforted each other. Everyone was saying, “We have suffered enough!” That was definitely true.
For the next month, my family had to live at our friends’ houses, where we could shower, eat, do laundry and have a good time together.
I really have learned something from this flood. I’ve learned what devastation is. I’ve learned what family is. During the past few weeks, I’ve learned what true friends are. In the future, when I watch people’s lives affected by natural disasters, I will not laugh. Instead, I will pity them. I will feel more compassion. I will relive my own sadness and remember the flood.
Adam Edelman, age 12
The Man Who Had Plenty
Remember, happiness doesn’t depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.
Dale Carnegie
Once there was a family that was not rich and not poor. They lived in Ohio in a small country house. One night they all sat down for dinner, and there was a knock at the door. The father went to the door and opened it.
There stood an old man in tattered clothes, with ripped pants and missing buttons. He was carrying a basket full of vegetables. He asked the family if they wanted to buy some vegetables from him. They quickly did because they wanted him to leave.
Over time, the family and the old man became friends. The man brought vegetables to the family every week. They soon found out that he was almost blind and had cataracts on his eyes. But he was so friendly that they learned to look forward to his visits and started to enjoy his company.
One day as he was delivering the vegetables, he said, “I had the greatest blessing yesterday! I found a basket of clothes outside my house that someone had left for me.”
The family, knowing that he needed clothes, said, “How wonderful!”
The old blind man said, “The most wonderful part is that I found a family that really needed the clothes.”
Reverend Mark Tidd
As told by Jerry Ullman
The Perfect Dog
During summer vacations, I would volunteer at the vet’s, so I’d seen a lot of dogs. Minnie was by far the funniest-looking dog I’d ever seen. Thin curly hair barely covered her sausage-shaped body. Her bugged-out eyes always seemed surprised. And her tail looked like a rat’s tail.
She was brought to the vet to be put to sleep because her owners didn’t want her anymore. I thought Minnie had a sweet personality, though. No one should judge her by her looks, I thought. So the vet spayed her and gave her the necessary shots. Finally, I advertised Minnie in the local paper: “Funny-looking dog, well behaved, needs loving family.”
When a young man called, I warned him that Minnie was strange looking. The boy on the phone told me that his grandfather’s sixteen-year-old dog had just died. They wanted Minnie no matter what. I gave Minnie a good bath and fluffed up what was left of her scraggly hair. Then we waited for them to arrive.
At last, an old car drove up in front of the vet’s. Two kids raced to the door. They scooped Minnie into their arms and rushed her out to their grandfather, who was waiting in the car. I hurried behind them to see his reaction to Minnie.
Inside the car, the grandfather cradled Minnie in his arms and stroked her soft hair. She licked his face. Her rattail wagged around so quickly that it looked like it might fly off her body. It was love at f
irst lick.
“She’s perfect!” the old man exclaimed.
I was thankful that Minnie had found the good home that she deserved.
That’s when I saw that the grandfather’s eyes were a milky white color—he was blind.
Jan Peck
The little woman who lived in a
plain old sneaker.
IN THE BLEACHERS. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
To Be Enormously Gorgeous
My dad says I am ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS. I wonder if I really am.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Sarah says you need to have beautiful long, curly hair like she has. I don’t.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Justin says you must have perfectly straight white teeth like he has. I don’t.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Jessica says you can’t have any of those little brown dots on your face called freckles. I do.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Mark says you have to be the smartest kid in the seventh-grade class. I’m not.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Stephen says you have to be able to tell the funniest jokes in the school. I don’t.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Lauren says you need to live in the nicest neighborhood in town and in the prettiest house. I don’t.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Matthew says you can only wear the coolest clothes and the most popular shoes. I don’t.
To be ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS . . . Samantha says you need to come from a perfect family. I don’t.
But every night at bedtime my dad gives me a big hug and says, “You are ENORMOUSLY GORGEOUS, and I love you.”
My dad must know something my friends don’t.
Carla O’Brien
5
ON DEATH
AND DYING
Death.
What a great teacher you are.
Yet few of us elect to learn from you, About life.
That is the essence of death’s teaching, Life.
Death is not an elective.
One day we all will take the class.
The wise students audit the class in early years And find enlightenment.
They are prepared when graduation day comes.
Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.
CALVIN AND HOBBES. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
The Purple Belt
A few years ago, I organized the Kick Drugs Out of America Foundation. It is an organization designed to work with high-risk, inner-city children. The idea is to teach the kids martial arts, to help raise their self-esteem and instill discipline and respect for themselves and others. Many of the kids, boys as well as girls, come from broken homes and are having trouble in school and in their lives in general. I’m pleased to say that the program has been working phenomenally well. Most young people quickly adapt to the philosophy of the martial arts.
After more than thirty-five years in the martial arts, competing and training thousands of young people, there is one story that is engraved in my memory. It was told to me by Alice McCleary, one of my Kick Drugs Out of America Black Belt instructors.
One of her young students showed up for karate training without his purple belt. Alice reminded him that part of his responsibility as a student was to have his karate uniform and belt with him at all times.
“Where is your belt?” she asked.
The boy looked at the floor and said he didn’t have it.
“Where is it?” Alice repeated. After pressing the boy to answer, he quietly lifted his head and looked at her and replied, “My baby sister died and I put it in her coffin to take to heaven with her.”
Alice had tears in her eyes as she told me the story. “That belt was probably his most important possession,” she said.
The boy had learned to give his best, unselfishly.
Chuck Norris
B. J.
You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can decide how you’re going to live now.
Joan Baez
“Phhhhhh.” The whistle blew, and everybody started tackling each other. It was football practice, on a cool August evening.
Bam! I hit somebody. I looked down into the face of one of my best friends, B. J.
“You were just lucky that time, Nate,” he teased.
“Yeah, right! It’s just that I’m good at football,” I joked back.
I had met my friend B. J. when we ended up on the same football team in sixth grade. Although everyone on our team liked B. J., he grew to be someone special to me. When we had to pick partners for things like tackling, it would always be B. J. and me. He was funny and fun— everything was always “Cool!” to him.
B. J. got back up and tackled me. We laughed, and then we heard our coach calling us.
“Come here, guys.” We all went over to him. “At our game tomorrow, I want you to play as hard as you can.”
“Okay,” we said in unison.
“That’s it for tonight. Don’t forget to finish your homework,” our coach hollered as we left the field.
“See you at the game tomorrow,” I screamed to B. J. He was going to his church youth group meeting. B. J. walked away with his dad, who was our assistant coach, as my mom pulled into the parking lot.
“Mom, after the game tomorrow, can B. J. come over?” I asked, hopping into the front seat.
“I don’t know. We’ll see,” she replied.
The next day, I went to the game, pads on, ready to go. We reviewed the plays that we had learned the night before. Then we stretched out. B. J. was late, and I was starting to wonder where he was. It was always easy to spot him right away because he was taller than anyone else on the team. I said to myself, B. J. would never miss a game. That was when I realized his dad wasn’t there either. He had never missed a game since he had started coaching us.
Something is wrong, I thought. Our coach called us over. Now I was really wondering what was going on.
“Guys, we need to win this game today.” Then he stopped talking. Everything was silent. “I’ve got some bad news. B. J. had an accident last night,” he told us.
I shut my eyes and started to cry to myself. I knew it was going to be really bad. My coach kept on talking.
“He was on his way back from his church youth group with a bunch of other kids. B. J. was swinging a nylon rope outside the car window when the rope got caught on the wheel axle. The rope jerked out of his hands, and he must have stuck his head outside the window to see what had happened. The rope whipped up and wrapped around his neck. It strangled him to death. And after the . . . ” My coach’s voice started to drift off. I couldn’t even concentrate on what he was saying anymore. All I could think about was how I had just seen him last night.
All the kids on our team were standing with their helmets in their hands, crying. “Let’s win this game for B. J.,” my coach shouted.
Through the whole game, I kept thinking about B. J. and looking into the sky. I wondered if he could see us playing our hearts out for him. We played our best game ever, and we won.
At our next practice, we took the blue stripe off our helmets and replaced it with a black stripe. We all put the number eighty, B. J.’s jersey number, on the backs of our helmets.
B. J.’s father came back to help coach our games again. He would have his hat on crooked, like he just didn’t care anymore. I felt really sad for him—he never looked happy and I never saw him smile again, even when we won. I know it was extra terrible for both B. J.’s mom and dad because he was their only child.
We wore our helmets with B. J.’s number to our next four games. We won every single game, and we played them for him. We made it to the championships, and there we tied for first place.
I know we couldn’t have done it without B. J. I feel as if he was with us. Sometimes I would look around, expecting at any moment to see him—in his favorite red T-shirt, with that blond buzzed hair sticking up every
which way, his face with that great smile on it.
Although B. J.’s death hasn’t made me stop doing the things that I love, like football, in-line skating and snow skiing, I’m not the daredevil I used to be. I stop and think about what I am doing before I do it—not only about the fun I will have, but also about the dangers that could be involved. I used to stick my hand out the car window when my dad or mom was driving, to catch leaves or something. Now I don’t.
I couldn’t go to B. J.’s funeral. It was too hard for me. All of us took it really hard, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. I really miss him.
Nate Barker, age 12
The Perfect Angel
When someone dies, they still live on in you and me, and everyone else who loved them.
Jessica Ann Farley, age 10
When I was seven years old, I met a new little girl who had just moved to my street. Kiki was a year older than I was. She had a brother, Sam, who needed to go to a special school, which is why her family had moved to Boston.
It was the summertime when we met, and the weather was very hot. Kiki and her mother came over to my house to get to know their new neighbors. Once Kiki and I saw each other, we knew that we would become great friends. That day, Kiki and I played outside and laughed together every minute. As the years progressed, Kiki and I became better and closer friends.
There is one day that I will never forget. I was in the fourth grade when this happened. I had noticed that Kiki had been getting a lot of really big bruises everywhere. I will not forget that night when the telephone rang and it was Kiki’s mother. When my mother got off the phone, she looked really upset. My mother and father called me into the dining room. My mother said, “Stacie, Kiki has a bad kind of cancer called leukemia.”
Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul: 101 Stories of Courage, Hope and Laughter Page 13
