Grateful Traveler: The Miracle Magnet, Part 3, Presents That Touch the Heart
These days, the newspapers, the radio, the Internet, and TV are filled with stories of gloom.
The country seems to have spent years in a euphoric state, only to have manically flipped to depression. Like everyone, I know how hard it is to get by.
But as a deep believer in Eskimos—the people who reach out their hands in kindness and help to show us the way—I am able to counter my own feelings of doom with hope for the future.
That hope doesn’t exist because there is a job on the horizon or someone is going to pick up the tab for our mortgage. That hope is purely a reflection of the year I have just spent writing about people across the world and their propensity toward goodness.
Click here to read Part One of the Miracle Magnet if you haven’t read it. Click here to read Part Two of the Miracle Magnet.
Most of the time, I write about exotic locales: Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, Botswana, Russia or China, to name a few. But for the past two weeks, I have been telling a story that is much closer to home about a family that came from very far away.
Along with another family, my husband, daughter and myself host a little girl from China who, as I write, is undergoing open-heart surgery here in Los Angeles. Poor beyond anything most Americans can imagine, the operation that could save her life would not have been possible without the help and generosity of many, many people. And so I spent two weeks acknowledging these Eskimos. I was ready to move on to a whole new topic when I received a call.
It was from Diane, the receptionist at my eye doctor’s office. Could I bring Ying and her dad in for a visit before she went for her surgery? The women in this office had already talked the doctor into donating his services to examine Ying’s father’s eyes, then they’d pooled their money to buy him two pair of glasses. (Given his poverty, these will probably be the only glasses he ever owns).
On that visit, I had asked them if they could collect old glasses so Ying and her dad could take them back to their village to help others. I thought this was what the call was about. I also thought I’d put off the visit until after Ying’s surgery. But Diane was insistent—I had to bring Ying and her dad by right away.
When we got there, I learned they had not yet collected any glasses.
Instead they had collected money, handing Ying’s dad an envelope full of cash. They had also bought gifts for Ying’s parents and grandparents and even toys to keep Ying occupied on the long plane ride home.
Most moving of all, Diane’s 5-year-old had visited Build-A-Bear Workshop to make a bear for 5-year-old Ying. It not only came with enough outfits to make a rock star jealous, but when you press it, you can hear its heart beat. How fitting.
And here’s the most amazing part of all. These women are not doctors or lawyers or even bankers. They do not have gobs of cash. They have families and rent and mortgages and heating bills and food to put on the table. They are not America’s wealthiest people. They work regular hours for pay that, I suspect, is on the lower end of the spectrum. But they gave and gave and gave anyway.
When I asked why, they replied, “We took her into our hearts.” Thus bearing witness to the true richness of the world—not designer handbags or fancy cars or travel to exotic destinations. Just a group of people, strangers really, reaching out to touch the lives of a Chinese family and leaving nothing but goodness in their wake.
By Jamie Simons for PeterGreenberg.com.
Author’s update: Ying completed her surgery with flying colors, and is expected to make a full recovery and lead a perfectly normal life as a healthy little girl.
Read more inspiring stories from the Grateful Traveler series:
