Feel-good stories

[Glacier]

A few years ago, while scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed, I came across photos of a mother holding her newborn baby. With tears in her eyes, she gazed lovingly at the tiny babe that had just been brought into the world. Bundled gently in a white hospital blanket, he was small and beautiful. And although he appeared to be asleep, this little fellow would never wake up. He was stillborn.

Truth be told, the picture confused me. I was genuinely grieved for this mother over the loss of her baby but more than anything else, I was weirded out. I found it strange that they’d posted a photo of their deceased infant and odder still that the mother’s arms were wrapped so tightly around him. I couldn’t imagine wanting to hold someone who was dead, even if they were your child.

“Would I hold my stillborn baby?”


You never anticipate having to actually answer this question. As the picture disappeared into my ever updating newsfeed, so did my train of thought. I never asked it again.

Even years later, during pregnancy, the word “stillbirth” never crossed my mind. No one ever mentioned it. These are not the questions that we like to think about.

Because as your womb tingles with the growth of new life, your attention is naturally focused elsewhere. Nine months are spent busily researching and weighing every possible option regarding genetic testing, home births, circumcision, and vaccinations. Pregnancy books are purchased, apps are downloaded and birthing plans completed.

But when your child is stillborn, you suddenly realize that you don’t have answers to the questions being asked.

Yes, you’ve spent the past three trimesters listening to a never ending parade of gory labour stories. Women in the mall spot your ballooning belly and stop to tell you about three day labours, engorged breasts, and colicky babies. You’ve begun to mentally prepare yourself for the forewarned pain and discomfort, third degree tears, husbands who need laughing gas, and epidurals that don’t work.

But suddenly you’re facing an entirely different sort of pain. Your child is stillborn and you’re walking blindly. You’re confronted with a multitude of questions and details that no one told you about.

No one tells you that your first night will be spent lying on an uncomfortable hospital bed, silently screaming for your baby. No one warns you that every detail of the birth will loop endlessly around your brain – you cannot shut it off long enough to fall asleep.

No one mentions the little teardrop that hangs on your hospital door – the first sign that something is amiss.

There was no warning about thin, hospital walls that echo the midnight cries of newborn babies in the ward around you. There is a hungry baby who will wake you up every hour but that baby is not yours.

No one tells you that despite emotional, mental and physical exhaustion, you will still require sleeping pills.

There is no preparation for the wave of jealousy that erupts as you watch a father pace the maternity ward with a small infant snuggled against his shoulder.

You’ve been warned about recovery time from c-sections, but no one said that you would barely feel the stitches in your abdomen because the pain in your heart cuts a thousand times deeper.

No one warns you that you will have to make choices about autopsies and funeral homes, cremation, burials, or memorials. That the money you were saving for extra baby onesies and diapers will be spent on purchasing a plot of earth and a grave marker.

Everyone prepares you for the post-pregnancy weight loss struggle, but no one tells you what to do when you’re so numb you forget to eat.

No one mentions that the saleswoman will cry alongside you as you’re forced to return a double stroller and matching carseats. No one whispers that you’ll have to find somewhere to store the crib that your husband so faithfully set up just a week prior.

No one ever tells you that you may leave the hospital empty handed.

But truthfully, even if someone had warned you about this side of childbirth – it wouldn’t have mattered. There will never be adequate preparation for moments like this. And so you take each day one step at a time, decision by decision.

And I think back to the picture of a mother holding her stillborn son. I am now that woman. Lying in a hospital bed, I am desperate to see my son. I wish for nothing more than to hold him and never let go; it is not strange, it’s love.

Because no one tells you that your baby will be beautiful. No one says that despite his stillness, despite the trauma he’s been through – he will be beyond precious. No one tells you just how deeply you will love him; that although his body is but a shell, you will hold his hand and whisper a lullaby in his ear. No one says that a mother’s heart can be both broken and bursting with pride at the same time.

And as I struggle to shake off the heavy fog of anesthesia, a nurse quietly asks if I’d like to hold my son. Walking an unmarked road, this is my first decision. Eagerly, without hesitation, I whisper a simple word, “Yes.”

~ Liz

[maryjane48]

Do horses remember each other and have emotions? You’re about to find out, and I have a feeling it’ll bring tears to your eyes.

In December of 2012, Sue repurchased Arthur, a horse that she bred but had to eventually sell. During this period, two of Arthur’s playmates from “foalhood” came to stay with her. William had been with Arthur since they were foals and Harry arrived as a foal a year later. Harry and William have shared their lives with many other horses and ponies since Spring 2009.

Would Arthur — a thoroughbred sports horse now aged eight-and-a-half – have any memory at all of the two New Forest pony playmates with whom he shared his youth? And likewise, would William and Harry recognize that little thoroughbred guy who was once their best mate?

Sue arranged for their incredible reunion in an English field where William and Harry had once briefly lived. She enlisted filmmaker Bruce Selkirk to capture the reunion on camera. The five-minute film you’re about to see is the editing down of nearly an hour of extraordinary footage.

Keep in mind that Mustons Field, the place where all three horses grew up together, was already sold at the time of this reunion; there was nothing familiar to them, other than the hearts and souls of these three bonded friends.

Sue recently posted an update. “It is now April 2015 and I thought I would give you an update. Arthur, William and Harry are still all together and very happy, so am I! We now have a wonderful home in South Dartmoor where we run Adventures with Horses, Equine Facilitated Experiential Learning.”


http://old-friend.littlethings.com/hors ... m=fb_share

[maryjane48]

When Jennifer Velasquez spotted a dog on Google Street View, she knew she needed to do something about it. So she called up Hope For Paws, and after a little investigating, they found that this abandoned dog named Sonya had been living in the area for a decade. You have to see her incredible story.

[Temet Nosce]

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... htm#139513

What a kind a brave sole to rescue Boots. I tried to comment on the story but for some reason my comments rarely seem to post under the stories...too bad I was surprised no comments were on this story. I thought it was touching...


Edit: I think I just figured out how to comment on the article!

[Temet Nosce]

See if you can keep dry eyes through this...such talent and so gifted in many ways I am sure. I hope the link works.

https://www.facebook.com/mimiimfurst/vi ... 6/?fref=nf

Truly inspirational...she reminded me to be grateful and to focus on all the gifts I have in life and not to worry so much about what doesn't really matter....

[maryjane48]

I was standing with Denise McCluggage in the hotel lobby at Long Beach. We were there for the Grand Prix. Bobby Rahal walked up and introduced a friend to Denise. By way of explanation, he said, “She’s like Danica, but nice.”

Indeed Rahal and Danica Patrick had their disagreements, which were quite recent at the time, but what he said was true: Denise McCluggage, who died Wednesday at the age of 88, was a pioneer, which is not a word I apply loosely.

Denise was before Shirley Muldowney. Before Janet Guthrie. And way before Danica Patrick.

Denise was a journalist, a sportswriter in New York when there were no women sportswriters, much less racers, a dual career odd enough to get her on the old “To Tell The Truth” TV show in 1959, where a celebrity panel had to guess what you did for a living.

Writer, then racer

She was always a writer, but in the 1950s, she became a racer. She won her class at Sebring in a Ferrari 250 GT, a car she owned and was her daily driver, because buying it took every penny she had. She raced at the Nurburgring, at Monte Carlo, where she won her class. You want to know more? You’d have to ask her. She never, ever said, “By the way, you know I raced at the Grand Prix of Venezuela in a Porsche…” I don't think she ever got to race at Le Mans, because it is an invitational race, and they once told her that they "choose not to invite women drivers."

But there are a lot of great racers, female and otherwise. The reason I respected Denise so much is that she was a great writer. In the automotive world, and motorsports world, there are some great writers, but I can count them on two hands. Denise was one. I read her stuff, right up until end – usually in Autoweek, which she helped found more than 50 year ago as Competition Press – and every story had a twist or a turn of phrase that would make me shake my head and think, “Crap, she’s still better than me.”

I’d known Denise for a while casually, but really got to know her after an event at Talladega Speedway. We both ended up at the airport in Birmingham, awaiting our flights, when a massive thunderstorm hit. We sat, talking, for maybe seven hours. It wasn’t long enough. Her stories – man. About cars. Racing. Journalism in New York City, where she worked at the Herald Tribune.

The people she knew, which was everybody. Being at an event with Denise was like sitting next to a magnet. Here comes Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Brock Yates, Briggs Cunningham, Carroll Shelby, A.J. Foyt, Stirling Moss. She knew Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, and others you wouldn’t assume, like Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck from her years in New York. I never asked her about her 1950s fling with Steve McQueen, but now I wish I had.

And in her day, she was, incidentally, a looker. Ten years ago, at a vintage racing memorabilia show in Indianapolis, I came across an ancient issue of Hot Rod that had a feature on Denise. She was wearing a dress the appeared to have been made from a checkered flag. The headline was something akin to, "Gal Racer and Writer Sizzles On and Off the Track!" I carried it with me for a couple of months until I saw her again, which was on the ferry to Catalina Island. I gave it to her, she looked at the story, and said, "I have absolutely no recollection of this." I said, "You still sizzle, you know." She rolled her eyes.

Never slowed down

Eventually Denise settled in her beloved Santa Fe. But she never retired. See the photo that accompanies this? It’s a snapshot I took of her last September next to an ancient steam engine at a mine in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Range Rover, new to America, had launched the product with a “Great Divide” expedition, where dozens of journalists, eight or 10 at a time, were invited to take part in crossing the Great Divide – north to south, not east to west.

That was 25 years ago. Last fall, Range Rover invited the journalists who were still alive to come back and do it again. We called it the “dinosaur wave,” and it was me and a few other veterans like Denise, William Jeanes, Jack Nerad and a couple of others.

Denise and I partnered for much of the trip. She had just gotten some new digital hearing aids, and was complaining that they did indeed amplify noise, but converted into digital signals, it was tough to separate conversation from the background.

One on harrowing drive near the end, Denise was driving, I was in the back seat, and riding shotgun was mountain driving expert Tom Collins, then and 25 years ago the architect of the expedition. We were leading the pack, and we were losing them.

“Might wanna slow down a little, Denise,” Collins would say, and she would, for a minute. “Denise, I think we’re losing the people behind us…” And she would slow down, for a minute.

Eventually, Collins gave up. We reached the end of the trail about five minutes before the next car. Try to slow down Denise McCluggage? Good luck.

One of my absolute favorite Denise columns in Autoweek had nothing to do with cars. She wrote of her marriage – until then, many of us didn’t even know she had been married – to a young and struggling actor, when she was a young and struggling sportswriter in New York. They were poor but in love. But both also loved the careers they had chosen, and soon their work drove them apart.

You didn’t know until the last paragraph that her husband was Michael Conrad, who was in a million TV shows and movies, but was best known for his Emmy Award-winning role of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus in “Hill Street Blues,” and by his famous ending to every roll call: “Let’s be careful out there.” He died in 1983, and that’s when Denise wrote her obituary on him.

After that, I asked Denise to write my obituary, because we thought she’d outlive all of us. In a sense, she has: You can read her writings at DeniseMccluggage.com.

RIP, Denise. You have no idea how much you will be missed, and by how many people.



http://www.motorsport.com/automotive/ne ... 1927-2015/

[maryjane48]

Best Mother's Day present

[sobrohusfat]

[oneh2obabe]

The video below was arranged and put together by an all female band called The Mrs. The set up an interactive mirror and asked women who approached the mirror how they felt when they see their reflection. The women are unaware that their loved ones have worked with The Mrs in order to help these women feel appreciated.

[oneh2obabe]

Nurse 'marries' 4-year-old cancer patient in hospital ceremony.

A nurse helped create "the best day ever" for his smitten four-year-old leukemia patient when he married her in a whirlwind, mock ceremony earlier this week at a U.S. hospital.



Abby suffers from pre-B cell acute lymphobastic leukemia. She met nurse Matt Hickling at the Albany Medical Center's Melodies Center for Childhood Cancer in Albany, N.Y.

"They have always had a great connection since the beginning of her [diagnosis]," reads a post from her Facebook page, Amazing Abby. The page shows multiple photos of Abby's nurses, including Hickling, taking great care of her.

A few days before the ceremony, Abby kept saying she was going to get married that week. When her mother pressed Abby to answer who she would be marrying, Abby said Hickling.

Her mother texted Hickling to give him a heads up about Abby's romantic plans.

"This took me by surprise," Hickling wrote on his Facebook page.

That's when Hickling sprang into action. In less than a day, he and the staff at the hospital planned and executed the four-year-old bride's dream wedding.

The little bride wore a shiny white dress and headband to the nuptials on Thursday. She carried a bouquet of pink and red flowers donated by a local florist.

She approached Hickling, who donned a tuxedo T-shirt for the occasion, and shyly asked him if he would marry her. When he said yes, she embraced him in a giant hug.

The pair exchanged candy rings, and Hickling pushed Abby in a special "Just married" pink car before the duo headed back to the ceremony room to cut the cake.

Balance of article
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/nurse-marries ... 26006.html

[oneh2obabe]

When Matthew Walzer—a 16-year-old junior from Parkland, Florida—sent Mark Parker a letter in 2012, he could have never guessed that it would result in the Nike FLYEASE.

[Temet Nosce]

http://www.metaspoon.com/overjoyed-gree ... happy-cat/

[oneh2obabe]

LOUISE, Texas --
A small gesture can lead to bigger things. And for a Wharton County woman, an act of kindness that bonded two new friends is going viral.

Brooke Ochoa of Louise, Texas, posted on Facebook last week that she went to a restaurant for lunch and held the door for a woman.

It turns out both of them were there alone, so Brooke asked the woman if she'd like to dine with her. They did, and Brooke learned about the difficult time the woman has had. Her mother, with whom she had lived, recently passed and an aunt had moved into a nursing home.

The conversation went on, and after they ate, the two decided to have lunch together every Thursday.

Brooke posted about the day on Facebook. And as of Sunday morning, that post had been liked 1.9 million times, shared 244,000 times, and had more than 126,000 comments.



Brooke Ochoa
33,255 followers
August 6 at 11:31am · Edited ·

Today I Went to eat at a restaurant for lunch and I saw this elder lady coming from afar so I waited to hold the door for her, she was very thankful and sweet. She then told the waitress, "table for one", so I waited and hesitated but then I walked over and said, "I'm eating by myself too would you like to have lunch together?" She was ecstatic! Come to find out she spent the last decade living with her mom who recently passed away and her aunt who recently was put into a nursing home, so she has been having a hard time being alone. We had a wonderful talk, and she just kept smiling and saying thank you for listening to me, which made me smile too! Her words healed my heart just as much as i healed her lonely one. By far the best decision I've made all year!!! Her name is Delores, and we will be having lunch every Thursday from now on

[V-Rated]

I love those acts of kindness stories with random people that develop into more!
~V~

[TheBoss]

About seven years ago I'm walking down 27th st in vernon bc. I'm walking past the nursing home We care Home health services. I noticed a elderly gentleman had gotten his wheelchair stuck between the bus park there and the sidewalk. So i ask the silly question, "do you need help" (yeah i know silly). So i tell him to hold on, grab the wheel chair and managed to get him back onto the sidewalk safely, asked if he was all right and well he just scooted off inside. I was thinking about letting a nurse know, but went on my way.