Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul: Inspirational Stories of Overcoming Life's Challenges
370
Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul: Inspirational Stories of Overcoming Life's Challenges
370eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781453278888 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Chicken Soup for the Soul |
| Publication date: | 08/07/2012 |
| Series: | Chicken Soup for the Soul Series |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 370 |
| Sales rank: | 925,100 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Jack Canfield is co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, which includes forty New York Times bestsellers, and coauthor of The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. He is a leader in the field of personal transformation and peak performance and is currently CEO of the Canfield Training Group and Founder and Chairman of the Board of The Foundation for Self-Esteem. An internationally renowned corporate trainer and keynote speaker, he lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Mark Victor Hansen is a co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Hometown:
Santa Barbara, CaliforniaDate of Birth:
August 19, 1944Place of Birth:
Fort Worth, TexasEducation:
B.A. in History, Harvard University, 1966; M.A.T. Program, University of Chicago, 1968; M.Ed., U. of Massachusetts, 1973Website:
http://www.jackcanfield.comRead an Excerpt
Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul
Inspirational Stories of Overcoming Life's Challenges
By Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Heather McNamara
Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC
Copyright © 2012 Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLCAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7888-8
CHAPTER 1
TAKING THE CHALLENGE
A ship in port is safe, but this is not what ships are built for.
Grace Hopper
My Mother's Greatest Gift
Optimism is a cheerful frame of mind that enables a tea kettle to sing though it's in hot water up to its nose.
Anonymous
I was ten years old when my mother was left paralyzed by a spinal tumor. Prior to that, she had been a vital, vibrant woman—active to an extent most people found astonishing. Even as a small child, I was awed by her accomplishments and beauty. But at thirty-one, her life changed. And so did mine.
Overnight, it seemed, she was flat on her back, confined to a hospital bed. A benign tumor had incapacitated her, but I was too young to comprehend the irony of the word "benign," for she was never to be the same.
I still have vivid images of her before the paralysis. She had always been gregarious and entertained frequently. She often spent hours preparing hors d'oeuvres and filling the house with flowers, which we picked fresh from the gardens that she kept in the side yard. She would get out the popular music of that era and rearrange the furniture to make room for friends to abandon themselves to dance. In fact, it was Mother who loved to dance most of all.
Mesmerized, I watched her dress for the evening's festivities. Even today, I remember our favorite dress, with its black skirt and midnight-lace bodice, the perfect foil for her blond hair. I was as thrilled as she the day she brought home black lace high-heeled pumps, and that night my mother surely was the most beautiful woman in the world.
She could do anything, I believed, whether it was play tennis (she won tournaments in college) or sew (she made all our clothes) or take photographs (she won a national contest) or write (she was a newspaper columnist) or cook (especially Spanish dishes for my father).
Now, although she could do none of these things, she faced her illness with the same enthusiasm she had brought to everything else.
Words like "handicapped" and "physical therapy" became part of a strange new world we entered together, and the child's rubber balls she struggled to squeeze assumed a mystique that they had never before possessed. Gradually, I began to help take care of the mother who had always taken care of me. I learned to care for my own hair—and hers. Eventually, it became routine to wheel her into the kitchen, where she instructed me in the art of peeling carrots and potatoes and how to rub down a good beef roast with fresh garlic and salt and chunks of butter.
When, for the first time, I heard talk of a cane, I objected: "I don't want my pretty mother to use a cane." But all she said was, "Wouldn't you rather have me walk with a cane than not walk at all?"
Every accomplishment was a milestone for us both: the electric typewriter, the car with power steering and brakes, her return to college, where she earned a master's degree in special education.
She learned everything she could about the disabled and eventually founded an activist support group called The Handicappers. One day, without saying much beforehand, she took me and my brothers to a Handicappers meeting. I had never seen so many people with so many disabilities. I returned home, silently introspective, thinking how fortunate we really were. She took us many other times after that and, eventually, the sight of a man or woman without legs or arms no longer shocked us. My mother also introduced us to victims of cerebral palsy, stressing that most of them were as bright as we were—maybe brighter. And she taught us to communicate with the mentally retarded, pointing our how much more affectionate they often were compared to "normal" people. Throughout all of this, my father remained loving and supportive.
When I was eleven, Mother told me she and Daddy were going to have a baby. Much later, I learned that her doctors had urged her to have a therapeutic abortion—an option she vehemently resisted. Soon, we were mothers together, as I became a surrogate mom to my sister, Mary Therese. In no time at all, I learned to change diapers, bathe and feed her. Though Mother maintained maternal discipline, for me it was a giant step beyond playing with dolls.
One moment stands out even today: the time Mary Therese, then two, fell and skinned her knee, burst into tears and ran past my mother's outstretched arms into mine. Too late, I glimpsed the flicker of hurt on Mother's face, but all she said was, "It's natural that she should run to you, because you take such good care of her."
Because my mother accepted her condition with such optimism, I rarely felt sad or resentful about it. But I will never forget the day my complacency was shattered. Long after the image of my mother in stiletto heels had receded from my consciousness, there was a party at our house. I was a teenager by then, and as I saw my smiling mother sitting on the sidelines, watching her friends dance, I was struck by the cruel irony of her physical limitations. Suddenly, I was transported back to the days of my early childhood, and the vision of my radiant, dancing mother was before me again.
I wondered whether Mother remembered, too. Spontaneously, I moved toward her, and then I saw that, though she was smiling, her eyes were brimming with tears. I rushed out of the room and into my bedroom, buried my face in my pillow and wept copious tears—all the tears she'd never shed. For the first time, I raged against God and at life and its injustices to my mother.
The memory of my mother's glistening smile stayed with me. From that moment, I viewed her ability to overcome the loss of so many former pursuits and her drive to look forward—things I had taken for granted—as a great mystery and a powerful inspiration.
When I was grown and entered the field of corrections, Mother became interested in working with prisoners. She called the penitentiary and asked to teach creative writing to inmates. I recall how they crowded around her whenever she arrived and seemed to cling to every word, as I had as a child.
Even when she no longer could go out to the prison, she corresponded frequently with several inmates.
One day, she asked me to mail a letter to one prisoner, Waymon. I asked if I could read it first, and she agreed, little realizing, I think, what a revelation it would be to me. It read:
Dear Waymon,
I want you to know that I have been thinking about you often since receiving your letter. You mentioned how difficult it is to be locked behind bars, and my heart goes out to you. But when you said that I couldn't imagine what it is like to be in prison, I felt impelled to tell you that you are mistaken.
There are different kinds of freedom, Waymon, different kinds of prison. Sometimes, our prisons are self-imposed.
When, at the age of thirty-one, I awoke one day to find that I was completely paralyzed, I felt trapped— overwhelmed by a sense of being imprisoned in a body that would no longer allow me to run through a meadow or dance or carry my child in my arms.
For a long time I lay there, struggling to come to terms with my infirmity, trying not to succumb to self-pity. I asked myself whether, in fact, life was worth living under such conditions, whether it might not be better to die.
I thought about this concept of imprisonment, because it seemed to me that I had lost everything in life that mattered. I was near despair.
But then, one day it occurred to me that, in fact, there were still some options open to me and that I had the freedom to choose among them. Would I smile when I saw my children again or would I weep? Would I rail against God—or would I ask Him to strengthen my faith?
In other words, what would I do with the free will He had given me—and which was still mine?
I made a decision to strive, as long as I was alive, to live as fully as I could, to seek to turn my seemingly negative experiences into positive experiences, to look for ways to transcend my physical limitations by expanding my mental and spiritual boundaries. I could choose to be a positive role model for my children, or I could wither and die, emotionally as well as physically.
There are many kinds of freedom, Waymon. When we lose one kind of freedom, we simply must look for another.
You and I are blessed with the freedom to choose among good books, which ones we'll read, which ones we'll set aside.
You can look at your bars, or you can look through them. You can be a role model for younger inmates, or you can mix with the troublemakers. You can love God and seek to know Him, or you can turn your back on Him.
To some extent, Waymon, we are in this thing together.
By the time I finished Waymon's letter, my vision was blurred by tears. Yet for the first time I saw my mother with greater clarity.
And I understood her.
Marie Ragghianti
The Ugliest Cat in the World
Weakness of character is the only defect which cannot be amended.
Francóis de La Róchefoucald
The first time I ever saw Smoky, she was on fire! My three children and I had arrived at the dump outside our Arizona desert town to burn the weekly trash. As we approached the smoldering pit, we heard the most mournful cries of a cat entombed in the smoking rubble.
Suddenly a large cardboard box, which had been wired shut, burst into flames and exploded. With a long, piercing meow, the animal imprisoned within shot into the air like a flaming rocket and dropped into the ash-filled crater.
"Oh, Mama, do something!" three-year-old Jaymee cried as she and Becky, age six, leaned over the smoking hole.
"It can't possibly still be alive," said Scott, fourteen. But the ashes moved, and a tiny kitten, charred almost beyond recognition, miraculously struggled to the surface and crawled toward us in agony.
"I'll get her!" Scott yelled. As my son stood knee-deep in ashes and wrapped the kitten in my bandanna, I wondered why it didn't cry from the added pain. Later we learned we had heard its last meow only moments before.
Back at our ranch, we were doctoring the kitten when my husband, Bill, came in, weary from a long day of fence-mending.
"Daddy! We found a burned-up kitty," Jaymee announced.
When he saw our patient, that familiar "Oh, no, not again!" look crossed his face. This wasn't the first time we had greeted him with an injured animal. Though Bill always grumbled, he couldn't bear to see any living creature suffer. So he helped by building cages, perches, pens and splints for the skunks, rabbits and birds we brought home. This was different, however. This was a cat. And Bill, very definitely, did not like cats.
What's more, this was no ordinary cat. Where fur had been, blisters and a sticky black gum remained. Her ears were gone. Her tail was cooked to the bone. Gone were the claws that would have snatched some unsuspecting mouse. Gone were the little paw pads that would have left telltale tracks on the hoods of our dusty cars and trucks. Nothing that resembled a cat was left—except for two huge cobalt-blue eyes begging for help.
What could we do?
Suddenly I remembered our aloe vera plant and its supposed healing power on burns. So we peeled the leaves, swathed the kitten in slimy aloe strips and gauze bandages, and placed her in Jaymee's Easter basket. All we could see was her tiny face, like a butterfly waiting to emerge from its silk cocoon.
Her tongue was severely burned, and the inside of her mouth was so blistered that she couldn't lap, so we fed her milk and water with an eyedropper. After a while, she began eating by herself.
We named the kitten Smoky.
Three weeks later, the aloe plant was bare. Now we coated Smoky with a salve that turned her body a curious shade of green. Her tail dropped off. Not a hair remained—but the children and I adored her.
Bill didn't. And Smoky despised him. The reason? He was a pipe smoker armed with matches and butane lighters that flashed and burned. Every time he lit up, Smoky panicked, knocking over his coffee cup and lamps before fleeing into the open air duct in the spare bedroom.
"Can't I have any peace around here?" he'd groan.
In time, Smoky became more tolerant of the pipe and its owner. She'd lie on the sofa and glare at Bill as he puffed away. One day he looked at me and chuckled, "Damn cat makes me feel guilty."
By the end of her first year, Smoky resembled a well-used welding glove. Scott was famous among his friends for owning the ugliest pet in the country—probably, the world.
Slowly, oddly, Bill became the one Smoky cared for the most. And before long, I noticed a change in him. He rarely smoked in the house now, and one winter night, to my astonishment, I found him sitting in his chair with the leathery little cat curled up on his lap. Before I could comment, he mumbled a curt, "She's probably cold—no fur, you know."
But Smoky, I reminded myself, liked the touch of cold. Didn't she sleep in front of air ducts and on the cold Mexican-tile floor?
Perhaps Bill was starting to like this strange-looking animal just a bit.
Not everyone shared our feelings for Smoky, especially those who had never seen her. Rumors reached a group of self-appointed animal protectors, and one day one of them arrived at our door.
"I've had numerous calls and letters from so many people," the woman said. "They are concerned about a poor little burned-up cat you have in your house. They say," her voice dropped an octave, "she's suffering. Perhaps it should be put out of its misery?"
I was furious. Bill was even more so. "Burned she was," he said, "but suffering? Look for yourself!"
"Here, kitty," I called. No Smoky. "She's probably hiding," I said, but our guest didn't answer. When I turned and looked at her, the woman's skin was gray, her mouth hung open and two fingers pointed.
Magnified tenfold in all her naked splendor, Smoky glowered at our visitor from her hiding place behind our 150-gallon aquarium. Instead of the "poor little burned-up suffering creature" the woman expected to see, tyrannosaurus Smoky leered at her through the green aquatic haze. Her open jaws exposed saber-like fangs that glinted menacingly in the neon light. Moments later the woman hurried out the door—smiling now, a little embarrassed and greatly relieved.
During Smoky's second year, a miraculous thing happened. She began growing fur. Tiny white hairs, softer and finer than the down on a chick, gradually grew over three inches long, transforming our ugly little cat into a wispy puff of smoke.
Bill continued to enjoy her company, though the two made an incongruous pair—the big weather-worn rancher driving around with an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth, accompanied by the tiny white ball of fluff. When he got out of the truck to check the cattle, he left the air conditioner on maximum-cold for her comfort. Her blue eyes watered, the pink nose ran, but she sat there, unblinking, in ecstasy. Other times, he picked her up, and holding her close against his denim jacket, took her along.
Smoky was three years old on the day she went with Bill to look for a missing calf. Searching for hours, he left the truck door open whenever he got out to look. The pastures were parched and crisp with dried grasses and tumbleweed. A storm loomed on the horizon, and still no calf. Discouraged, without thinking, Bill reached into his pocket for his lighter and spun the wheel. A spark shot to the ground and, in seconds, the field was on fire.
Frantic, Bill didn't think about the cat. Only after the fire was under control and the calf found did he return home and remember.
"Smoky!" he cried. "She must have jumped out of the truck! Did she come home?"
No. And we knew she'd never find her way home from two miles away. To make matters worse, it had started to rain—so hard we couldn't go out to look for her.
Bill was distraught, blaming himself. We spent the next day searching, wishing she could meow for help, and knowing she'd be helpless against predators. It was no use.
Two weeks later, Smoky still wasn't home. We were afraid she was dead by now, for the rainy season had begun, and the hawks, wolves and coyotes had families to feed.
Then came the biggest rainstorm our region had experienced in fifty years. By morning, flood waters stretched for miles, marooning wildlife and cattle on scattered islands of higher ground. Frightened rabbits, raccoons, squirrels and desert rats waited for the water to subside, while Bill and Scott waded knee-deep, carrying bawling calves back to their mamas and safety.
The girls and I were watching intently when suddenly Jaymee shouted, "Daddy! There's a poor little rabbit over there. Can you get it? "there. Can you get it? "
Bill waded to the spot where the animal lay, but when he reached out to help the tiny creature, it seemed to shrink back in fear. "I don't believe it," Bill cried. "It's Smoky!" His voice broke. "Little Smoky!"
My eyes ached with tears when that pathetic little cat crawled into the outstretched hands of the man she had grown to love. He pressed her shivering body to his chest, talked to her softly, and gently wiped the mud from her face. All the while her blue eyes fastened on his with unspoken understanding. He was forgiven.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Heather McNamara. Copyright © 2012 Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,1. TAKING THE CHALLENGE,
2. LIVING YOUR DREAM,
3. THE POWER OF LOVE,
4. THE POWER OF SUPPORT,
5. INSIGHTS AND LESSONS,
6. ON COURAGE AND DETERMINATION,
7. ON ATTITUDE,
8. A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE,
9. ECLECTIC WISDOM,
Who Is Jack Canfield?,
Who Is Mark Victor Hansen?,
Who Is Heather McNamara?,
Contributors,
Permissions,