每日阅读☆心灵鸡汤☆☆
非常真挚感人的好文章，既可以学习英语，更滋润人的心灵。[attach]581[/attach]
[b]In Sickness and in Health[/b]
By Dorothy C. Randle
When Herman and I took our wedding vows over fifteen years ago, we were committed to our relationship. We became best friends, sharing everything, holding hands, laughing at our mistakes and failures, as well as our triumphs and successes. We liked to go on mini-vacations and often would get away for rest and relaxation. Our honeymoon never ended.
Yet little did we know how much our love for each other would be tested through those five little words we proclaimed in our vows, "In sickness and in health."
It was January 1990. Herman had just come from a routine visit to his doctor - a trip he had taken for over two decades since his kidney transplant in 1967.
Herman was only seventeen years old when his father unselfishly gave his son the gift of life: one of his kidneys. At the time, Herman was well known on the Centennial High School campus in Compton, California, where he excelled in sports. Baseball was his life, but the transplant ended his dreams of professional success. Even during those trying times, Herman kept his smile.
But on that day in 1990, Herman - whose broad smile and heartfelt laughter always bred celebration - showed terror, hurt and despair, mirroring the feelings in my heart. Without warning, the transplanted kidney had stopped functioning.
Herman began dialysis treatments two months later. A machine substituted for his kidney by purifying his blood three days a week, three to four hours at a time. His smooth muscular arms soon knotted with bulges from the constant needle pricks. His exhausted veins collapsed.
No more unplanned vacations; the dialysis treatments came first. Often passionate lovemaking became cuddling each other to sleep. We found solace in our love and made laughter the key to our survival.
And we prayed for another kidney.
Eleven years later, an unexpected phone call from UCLA Medical Center answered those prayers: "We have a donor."
Together, we rejoiced and offered more prayers, this time in thanksgiving. But, would it be a match? We waited to hear . . one hour, two hours, then three. The phone rang again, this time with disappointing news.
Oh, well, we consoled ourselves, we've waited this long. Surely we can keep waiting.
One week to the day later, we received another call. It was a perfect match! We anxiously rushed down to UCLA. As we drove, we reflected on all the years of dialysis and how we had prayed for this miracle, and then we cried - happy tears and tears of sorrow. For the other side of our joy was the reality that someone had lost their life to give Herman this opportunity to live.
It was a nineteen-year-old man who had died of head trauma. He had only been eight years old when Herman's kidney failed. For eleven years we prayed for a perfect match. For that same eleven years this young man had grown up, graduated from elementary, junior high and high school. He was probably in college. It never occurred to us that someone so young would give life to a fifty-one-year-old man. We never thought that the answer to our prayers would be the devastation of someone else's. How unselfish of his family. Now, instead of praying for a kidney, we pray for this young man's family.
Throughout the process, I remained at Herman's side. I learned every medication and followed the prescribed routine for his recovery. Everything else in my life faded. His care was my primary concern.
While he was in the hospital, one nurse remarked on my commitment to my husband. "You have no idea how many people separate and divorce because of the strain on the relationship when dealing with dialysis and transplants," she told me.
Leave my husband during a time of sickness? Never. I was committed to our vows. More importantly, I could never leave the love of my life!
It's been a year since the surgery, and Herman is doing well. His body is still recovering, but he is the same happy and joyful person he was when we met. And now we both truly understand that life is precious. We travel again, and we still hold hands and take long walks. We laugh a lot, even when Herman's recovering body is not up to making love. Our marriage has been sustained by our commitment to love and to cherish each other in sickness and in health. wonderful,up! 慢慢来,我还没看懂:loveliness:
It's Baseball Season
[b][size=5]It's Baseball Season[/size][/b][size=4]By Denise Turner[/size]
[size=3] The team members' attention spans stretch barely the length of a cartoon. Their eyes are invisible beneath oversized batting helmets. They wear T-shirts with messages like "Critter Ridders Pest Control: 30 Years of Service in Roaches."
All across the country, it's T-ball season.
I became a T-ball mom when my seven-year-old son signed up to be a Giant (an obvious misnomer for a team where no one can bench press a Nerf ball). I should have been prepared. We limped through flag football last fall.
I still remember that day when the youngest kid on the football field kept interrupting the game squealing, "Coach, are we winning yet?"
It's a significant question.
In T-ball, no one even keeps score. That's good. It makes me think of Megan, a little girl I met before I moved to Idaho. Megan could neither hit nor throw a ball, but she wanted to play T-ball. I saw a few of her games.
Megan's parents and coaches practiced with her, encouraged her and never once considered calling her a klutz. But when the last game of the season rolled around, Megan still hadn't connected with the ball.
When she finally did, she hit an easy pop fly and her team lost. But the people in the bleachers stood up and cheered for Megan. Because, by that time, everyone knew she was a winner.
I moved away before Megan grew up, but I'm sure she grew up successful. Not because she had any more talent than the boy whose dad yelled at him whenever he didn't get a hit. In fact, she probably had much less. But Megan had something else. She had people around her who cared, not about her batting average, but about her.
Not long ago, I sat listening to a speaker who insisted that we are living in the midst of a generation of kids who see themselves as potential failures.
Among the causative factors, she said, parental influence is the greatest. I'm determined to be the right kind of T-ball mom. My husband may do a better job with practice sessions, but I'm pretty good at screaming, "Way to go, slugger!" Even when (and all of this has happened this season) . .
The second baseman is turning cartwheels when he's supposed to be fielding the ball.
A child is lying flat on the ground refusing to budge after he's been thrown out - and the other kids are trampling over him.
A batter is rounding the bases because the right fielder doesn't want to give up the ball.
The coach is yelling, "Take your base, Son," but the kid is standing there pointing toward center field. His mother yells from the stands, "That means he has to go to the bathroom."
In spite of it all, these children are making their first stabs at growing up. They're taking their first steps toward life in the major leagues. They may be chewing bubble gum instead of tobacco and they may not have learned how to scratch themselves yet, but they take their base hits seriously.
I'm glad they haven't yet "arrived." I'd hate to give up being a T-ball mom, because I think I really like the game.
After all, anything that ends with Reese's Pieces and Kool-Aid Kool Bursts can't be all bad.[/size]
First Injection
[b]First Injection[/b]By Barbara Bartlein
[size=4][font=Arial][color=black]From the time I was four years old, I announced to anyone who asked, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a nurse.” My parents tried to nurture this dream. They would surprise me with little nurse’s kits. Contained in a small plastic case latched at the top was all the equipment needed to be a nurse: a thermometer permanently marked to 98.6, a pill bottle filled with candy (which would be gone in two hours), a stethoscope that didn’t work and, best of all, a syringe.
I loved that syringe. I would spend hours filling it up with water and “injecting” my little sister. I would “inject” the family dog and a very reluctant cat. No other single function represented nursing to me as well as giving injections. To me, giving shots was the epitome of what nurses do.
You can imagine my excitement, therefore, when we reached the part of my nurses’ training where we learned injections. I studied the techniques carefully and practiced on peaches. I practiced so much that the fruit at my house had little water blisters all over that looked like scabies. I participated in the “return demonstration” with my fellow nursing students. I always claimed that my partner’s injection was painless so that she would make a similar claim when it was my turn.
The following week, I began my emergency room rotation at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs. One day, a handsome, tanned construction worker was admitted with a large laceration on his right arm. About six feet, five inches tall, 250 pounds, he had huge muscles and a grin to match. “I just sliced this a little with some sheet metal, Ma’am,” he reported. He lay on the exam table while the doctor sutured him with a dozen stitches. He listened intently while the doctor gave instructions for wound care.
And then the magical moment occurred. The doctor turned to me and said, “Nurse Bartlein, would you please give this gentleman a tetanus shot?” [i]My big chance[/i]! A real injection on a real patient. I practically floated on air as I scrambled to the refrigerator and took out the tetanus vaccine. I carefully drew up the prescribed amount and returned to the patient. I meticulously swabbed the site with an alcohol wipe and then expertly darted that needle deep into the deltoid muscle. I aspirated as taught and slowly injected the vaccine.
With a grin, the construction worker said, “Thank you, Ma’am” and stood up. I winked at him, and he winked at me. He stood there for a minute and promptly crumpled to the floor unconscious. [i]Oh, my God, I killed him! My first injection and I killed the patient.[/i] My impulse was to run out the door as far into the mountains as possible. [i]Forget about being a nurse, forget about injections, I’ll live off the land. No one will ever find me.[/i]
Everyone else came running and slowly helped the patient to his feet. The doctor could see that I was quite shaken. He reassured me with a smile and said, “Don’t worry, he’s fine. The big ones always faint!”[/color][/font][/size] JAN，字要大些，偶眼泪都出来了
Winners Never Quit
[font=Arial][b]Winners Never Quit[/b]By Lisa Nichols[/font]
[font=Arial][size=3]I had been swimming competitively for about five years and was ready to quit, not because I had satisfied my desire to swim, but because I felt I was horrible at it. I was often the only African American at a swim competition, and our team could not afford anything close to the great uniforms the other teams were wearing. Worst of all though, and my number-one reason for wanting to quit, was that I kept receiving "Honorable Mentions" at each competition, which simply means, "Thank you for coming. You did not even rank first, second or third, but we don't want you to go home with nothing, so here is something to hide later." Any athlete knows that you don't want to have a bookshelf or a photo album full of "Honorable Mentions." They call that the "show-up ribbon"; you get one just because you showed up.
One hot summer day, the very day before a big swim meet, I decided to break the news to my grandma that I was quitting the swim team. On the one hand I thought it was a big deal because I was the only athlete in the family, but on the other hand, because no one ever came to see me compete, I didn't think it would be a major issue. You have to know my grandma - she stood on tiptoe to five-feet-two-inches and weighed a maximum ninety-five pounds, but could run the entire operation of her house without ever leaving her sofa or raising her voice. As I sat next to my grandma, I assumed my usual position of laying my big head on her tiny little lap so that she could rub it.
When I told her of my desire to quit swimming, she abruptly pushed my head off of her lap, sat me straight up facing her and said, "Baby, remember these words: 'A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.' Your grandmother didn't raise no losers or quitters. You go to that swim meet tomorrow, and you swim like you are a grandchild of mine, you hear?"
I was too afraid to say anything but, "Yes, ma'am."
The next day we arrived at the swim meet late, missing my group of swimmers in the fifteen/sixteen age group. My coach insisted I be allowed to swim with the next group, the next age older. I could have just as easily crawled out of the gym. I knew she was including me in the race so our long drive would not be wasted, and she had no expectations whatsoever that I would come in anything but eighth - and only that because there were not nine lanes.
As I mounted the board, I quickly noticed that these girls with their skintight caps, goggles and Speedo suits were here to do one thing - kick my chocolate butt!
All of a sudden my grandma's words rang in my head, Quitters never win and winners never quit, quitters never win and winners never quit.
SPLASH!
Quitters never win and winners never quit, quitters never win and winners never quit.
I was swimming harder than I'd ever swum before. As I drew my right arm back, I noticed I was tied with one person. I assumed we were battling for eighth place and I refused to finish dead last, so I added more kick on the last two hundred yards.
Quitters never win and winners never quit, quitters never win and winners never quit.
I hit the wall and looked to the left and to the right for the swimmers who had beat me, but no one was there. They must have gotten out of the water already.
I raised my head to see my coach screaming hysterically. My eyes followed her pointing finger and I couldn't believe what I saw. The other swimmers had just reached the halfway point of the pool! That day, at age fifteen, I broke the national seventeen/eighteen-year-old 400-freestyle record. I hung up my honorable mentions and replaced them with a huge trophy.
Back at Grandma's, I laid my head on her lap and told her about our great race.[/size]
[/font] [align=center][font=Arial][size=3][b]Revenge of the Fifth-Grade Girls (2006-3-12)[/b]
By Carolyn Magner Mason[/size][/font][/align][size=3]
[/size][font=Arial][size=3]A mother cannot force her daughters to become sisters. She cannot makethem be friends or companions or even cohorts in crime. But, if she'svery lucky, they find sisterhood for themselves and have one true allyfor life. My daughters did not seem likely candidates for sisterlylove. They are as different as night and day, and as contrary as anytwo girls living under the same roof can possibly manage.
Myyoungest daughter, Laura, is smart, athletic and good at mosteverything she tries. But for her, friendships are tricky. When, atseven years old, she was thrust into the world of lunch pals andsleepovers, she struggled to survive.
Catherine, on the other hand,sits at the top of the elementary school pecking order. A bright,popular and beautiful fifth-grader, she is usually surrounded by a bevyof adoring girlfriends. When you are in second grade, a word or nodfrom a fifth-grade girl is the greatest thing that can happen. ButCatherine and her friends seldom noticed her sister's valiant attemptsto be noticed.
One hectic morning, while getting ready for school,both girls began begging for a new hairstyle. Sighing, I gatheredbrushes, combs and pins and quickly created new looks. I braidedLaura's wispy locks into a snazzy side-braid. I combed Catherine'sshiny black hair into a sleek, French twist. They twirled in front ofthe mirror, pleased with what I'd done.
Laura bounced out the door,swinging her braid proudly. But at school, one girl pointed at her andwhispered to the other girls. Then the girl walked up to Laura andasked in a scathing tone, "What's with the stinking braid?"
Lauracrumbled. After getting permission from her teacher, she went to thebathroom, where she sat and cried in an empty stall. Then she splashedcold water on her face and bravely returned to the classroom - braidintact.
That afternoon, she broke my heart with her sad tale. Howcould I have sent her out wearing a stinking braid? How could I haveset her back in her meager attempts to fit in with the other girls? Ifought back my tears as I drove my girls home. Hearing her sister'ssorrow, Catherine sat in stony silence, and as I often do, I wishedthey had the kind of bond that would allow them to reach out to eachother. I barely noticed Catherine spent more time on the phone thanusual that evening.
The next afternoon, when I pulled to the frontof the carpool line, I discovered a small miracle had occurred. Therestood Laura, surrounded by the smartest, cutest, most popularfifth-grade girls. My tiny daughter glowed with utter astonishment asthey twirled her around, complimented her and focused a brilliant lightof attention upon her. And, to my amazement, every single one wore aside-braid, exactly like the one Laura had worn the day before. Tenstinking braids, I thought, as I tried to swallow the lump lodged in mythroat.
"I don't know what happened!" exclaimed Laura, clamberinginto the van. "I looked up, and all the girls were wearing my braid."She grinned all the way home, arms wrapped around skinny knees,reliving her short life's happiest moment.
I glanced at Catherine in the rearview mirror, and I think she winked at me. I'm not sure.[/size][/font]
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