helping the bushfire victims

There have been several appeals in the last couple of days for goods (clothes, toiletries, toys for kids, etc) to help the bushfire victims and the massive response has been heartening. A local radio station here organised some trucks to head to Victoria and they received so many donations they couldn't fit them all in. A couple of emergency centres in Victoria have similarly had to request that people stop bring donations of goods and instead focus on blood and money donations to the Red Cross.

Nothing is going to make this a good situation, but it's still amazing to see the immediate and compassionate response. I'm not usually one to put in a good word for big business (only $1 donated from each Big Mac on McHappy Day, McD's? And how much profit do you make out of the remainder of the price as a result?) however I want to applaud Coles supermarkets. Coles is not only providing water, food and other necessities, but this Friday ALL of their profits for the day are being donated to the Bushfire Appeal. They are not only giving up the day's profit, but of course will also lose some sales from other days that week because people are waiting to shop on the Friday. Yeah, it's just one day, but they didn't have to do it and it's a LOT of money.

If you're in Australia I hope you can find a way to contribute. I'm donating to the Red Cross. I also need to find out where the blood bus is today and hopefully donate blood, too. The last couple of times I had the chance to donate blood I was taking antibiotics and couldn't, but luckily this time I'm not even on hayfever medication. Good timing.

wept like a baby watching this video

This is a shortened version of the story - for the whole thing follow the title link or just watch the video. I've mainly included the text in case anyone can't access the youtube video. People like this are so inspiring. We have so much strength that we don't realise until something calls it from us. I wish it was easier to tap into my potential as a human being without waiting for some terrible challenge to demand it of me. Dick Hoyt at half speed would make my life look unfulfilled.



The story:

Rick Hoyt (Dick's son) was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him And his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes Followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the Engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.''
"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''
That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, It felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the father of the century.''
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Wow. Seriously, wow.