So often friends pledge great loyalty to each other. How many, though, would willingly take a risk with their life and health for a friend?
A number of years ago, Newsweek reported on two friends who worked together as nurses. One was experiencing kidney failure. After many attempts to find a kidney failed, the healthy nurse approached her sick friend. With some effort, she convinced her friend to let her donate a kidney.
The risk that the healthy nurse took and the sacrifice she made for her friend brought happiness to both of them. Of course, as they reported, their friendship deepened.
Taking a risk for a friend is a very special act. It happens far too infrequently. Even more special is the willingness to take a risk for someone you do not know. Clearly, there are many people who are willing and motivated to do this, too. In addition to firemen and policemen, who take such risks professionally, there are daily reports of heroes who have rescued someone.
There are also those who die from taking risks for others. One group that comes to mind is those soldiers who in war fall on mines to protect their comrades. Another group is the musicians who played on the Titanic deck as it sank, trying to keep people calm, knowing that there were not enough lifeboats for all.
Live heroes are usually honored with local recognition.
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Excerpted and adapted from a collection of vignettes I published, copyright 2003.
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About Me
- Elizabeth Mahlou
- I am the mother of 4 birth children (plus 3 others who lived with us) and grandmother of 2, all of them exceptional children. Married for 42 years, I grew up in Maine, live in California, and work in many places in education, linguistics, and program management. In my spare time, I rescue and tame feral cats and have the scars to prove it. A long-time ignorantly blissful atheist converted by a theophanic experience to Catholicism, I am now a joyful catechist. Oh, I also authored a dozen books, two under my pen name of Mahlou (Blest Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God).
Recommended Reading List
Because I am blog inept, I don't quite know how to get a reading list to stay at the end of the page and not disappear from sight. Therefore, I entered it as my first post. I suppose that is not all that bad because readers started commenting about the books, even suggesting additional readings. So, you can participate with others in my reading list by clicking here.I do post additional books as I read them and find them to be meaningful to me, and therefore, hopefully, meaningful to you. One advantage of all the plane traveling I do is that I acquire reading time that I might not otherwise take.
Elizabeth:
ReplyDeleteALL heroes should be recognized and, if possible, thanked.
It seems like the media reports so much negative news but not enough positive. I know thier are so many people in the world taking risk for others but isn't as "newsworthy" as the horrible stuff going on.
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts!
God bless heroes and heroines!
ReplyDeleteDear Quiet Spirit, they certainly should. We don't always know who they are, though!
ReplyDeleteFaith Imagined, they say that only bad news sells. I don't know about that, but when I lived in the USSR, only good news was reported, and people generally did not believe it.
MS: Indeed!