. A friend of mine is really poor. Now I am not saying that meanly, I myself am poor, but she is much worse off. She had never had a real piece of jewelry her whole life so for her birthday last year I went into a pawn shop to find her a nice piece…
. I teach newly arrived immigrant teenagers English as a Second Language. Many of these children come to me from countries where their living condition are horrible and life-threatening. Often, one of the parents comes to the US and works, sending home money so that smugglers can be paid to bring other family members here (usually…
. One day I was in Newton Center, MA at just the moment a young woman, carrying a not to tightly bound sheaf of dollar bills, was pushed by the wind and somehow let go of them. No doubt she was en route to the local bank to make a deposit for a local business….
. When I was checking out at the market the other day, the clerk, a sweet young lady whom I’d never seen before, looked up at me with her big beautiful eyes and said “well, don’t you look pretty this morning!”Now keep in mind I am 83 years old, but at that moment, she made…
. When I was 18 I had a seasonal job as a package handler at UPS. It was the twilight shift and in the middle of nowhere. It was late when my shift was through. The buses had either stopped running or weren’t coming for hours. As I sat at the bus stop alone and…
. I am going to bare a bit of my soul here when I share an experience that I believe has truly shaped who I am as a person and an educator. Although I believe I was always passionate about teaching, an experience nearly three years ago totally changed my outlook on what it means…
I’d spent almost 2 hours washing and ironing on Sunday morning and asked each of my children to come and get their piles of clothing from the kitchen table to put away. About 30 minutes later, my youngest son yelled out to find out where I was. He came to my bedroom and said, “mum,…
. When I worked in the emergency room as a nurse, a very sick man came in by ambulance, he’d had a stroke. He was awake and very agitated, but could hardly speak and had paralysis on one side. By listening very closely, I learned that his dog was home alone and he was so…
On a recent trip to Nassau, Bahamas I had the opportunity to meet several awesome women. One in particular stands out in my mind because of her kind actions. Natalie was a stranger who saw I was in need and offered assistance. I was in a taxi in route to a talk I was hosting…
. I was a newly qualified nurse and I had moved to a new country and was really feeling totally out of my depth on my first shift. Everything was different and I was scared and unsure. I’d been flung in at the deep end working in an A&E ward in a hospital that I’d…
. A few weeks ago we had a young lad come to our door. We are one of a few houses close to where his car was flashing the oil light. He asked if he could borrow some oil. We gave him what we had, which was probably only enough to get him to the…
. The week before Christmas 2013, I shopped at a discount grocery store. While standing in line, I made small talk with the elderly woman in front. She shared how excited she was that her family was going to visit her and how fortunate she was that her Christmas bonus would be able to cover…