Normally we bring you stories from the newspapers but today this is from another website. The touching story below is taken from the book Chicken Soup for the Soul, which is filled with wonderfully inspirational stories, but this one is extra special. And best of all, it is true! Click on the link at the bottom of this page to verify the story and learn more about how this little boy became the very first recipient of the now famous Make-A-Wish program. May we all remember how precious life is, and how special the moment of death can be.
The Littlest Firefighter
The 26-year-old mother stared down at her son who was dying of terminal leukemia. Although her heart was filled with sadness, she also had a strong feeling of determination. Like any parent she wanted her son to grow up and fulfill all his dreams. Now that was no longer possible. The leukemia would see to that.
But she still wanted her son's dreams to come true. She took her son's hand and asked, "Bopsy, did you ever think about what you wanted to be once you grew up? Did you ever dream and wish what you would do with your life?"
"Mommy, I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up." Mom smiled back and said, "Let's see if we can make your wish come true."
Later that day she went to her local fire department in Phoenix, Arizona, where she met Fireman Bob, who had a heart as big as Phoenix. She explained her son's final wish and asked if it might be possible to give her six-year-old son a ride around the block on a fire engine.
Fireman Bob said, "Look, we can do better than that. If you'll have your son ready at seven o'clock Wednesday morning, we'll make him an honorary fireman for the whole day. He can come down to the fire station, eat with us, go out on all the fire calls, the whole nine yards! "And if you'll give us his sizes, we'll get a real fire uniform for him, with a real fire hat -- not a toy one -- with the emblem of the Phoenix Fire Department on it, a yellow slicker like we wear and rubber boots. They're all manufactured right here in Phoenix, so we can get them fast."
Three days later Fireman Bob picked up Bopsy, dressed him in his fire uniform and escorted him from his hospital bed to the waiting hook and ladder truck. Bopsy got to sit on the back of the truck and help steer it back to the fire station. He was in heaven. There were three fire calls in Phoenix that day and Bopsy got to go out on all three calls. He rode in the different fire engines, the paramedic's van, and even the fire chief's car. He was also videotaped for the local news program. Having his dream come true, with all the love and attention that was lavished upon him, so deeply touched Bopsy that he lived three months longer than any doctor thought possible.
One night all of his vital signs began to drop dramatically and the head nurse, who believed in the hospice concept that no one should die alone, began to call the family members to the hospital. Then she remembered the day Bopsy had spent as a fireman, so she called the Fire Chief and asked if it would be possible to send a fireman in uniform to the hospital to be with Bopsy as he made his transition.
The chief replied, "We can do better than that. We'll be there in five minutes. Will you please do me a favor? When you hear the sirens screaming and see the lights flashing, will you announce over the PA system that there is not a fire? It's just the fire department coming to see one of its finest members one more time. And will you open the window to his room?
About five minutes later a hook and ladder truck arrived at the hospital, extended its ladder up to Bopsy's third floor open window and five firefighters climbed up the ladder into Bopsy's room. With his mother's permission, they hugged him and held him and told him how much they loved him. With his dying breath, Bopsy looked up at the fire chief and said, "Chief, am I really a fireman now?" "Yes, Bopsy, you are a fireman now," the chief said. With those words, Bopsy smiled and closed his eyes one last time. He passed away later that evening.
For more on the background of this amazing true story:
http://www.wish.org/about/the_first_wish/any_wish_at_all - Make-A-Wish website on Bopsy
http://www.ci.phoenix.az.us... - Bopsy's story and photos in the Phoenix Fire Department's newsletter
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
‘Miracle mom’ home after waking from coma
Her heart stopped twice after she gave birth; family was saying goodbye
Miracle mom Lori Smith’s heart stopped twice after she gave birth to baby Delilah.
By Michael Inbar
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 12:12 p.m. ET March 2, 2009
With his wife in a seemingly irreversible coma, Michael Smith brought his children to Bethesda North Hospital in Cincinnati to say goodbye to their mother before she was pulled off life support.
But Lori Smith’s 8-year-old daughter Megan wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Instead, she said, “Mom, if you love us and you hear us, move your eyes.”“Lori moved her eyes, and that was the first sign that I knew Lori was there,” Michael Smith said. “I didn’t know if Lori was being mom for the last time or what, but God really gave us a miracle and brought Lori back to us.”
Some 56 days after Lori went to the hospital for what appeared to be a no-drama birth of the couple’s fourth child, she is — despite long odds against her — back at the family’s home in Morrow, Ohio. Michael and Lori, along with children Megan, Katie Beth, Hayden and newborn Delilah, appeared live via satellite on TODAY Monday to tell Ann Curry the awe-inspiring story of what is called the case of the Miracle Mom.
Lori Smith entered the hospital on New Year’s Eve, and at 4:19 a.m. on New Year’s Day, delivered baby Delilah. But things went horribly wrong for Lori shortly after she greeted her newborn.
“First Lori had a headache, then 15 minutes later she started throwing up, and then was totally unresponsive,” Michael told TODAY. “They couldn’t wake her up. They called the Emergency Response Team. They couldn’t do anything — they thought she was dying.”
Lori’s heart actually stopped beating twice during an agonizing 49-minute period before doctors and nurses managed to get a regular heartbeat again. They learned Lori’s system shut down because blood clots formed in her brain, liver and kidneys, and that she had also suffered a stroke that went to her brainstem.
She drifted in and out of consciousness for the next several days before finally fading into a coma. After 13 days, doctors sadly informed Michael Smith his wife was unlikely to ever recover.
Last goodbye
“The neurologists said they didn’t think there was much hope, and they wanted to know what me and Lori talked about, what we would want to do with Lori, if we’d want her to live in a home the rest of her life that way, or take her off the respirator,” he told Curry.
Smith had resisted bringing Katie Beth, 12, Megan and Hayden, 6 to see their mother while she was in a coma, believing the experience would be “too traumatic,” he said. But Smith said he realized he had to prepare the children for their mother to be taken off the respirator.
“I was bringing the kids for the first time to see Lori and say goodbye to their mom,” he said.
While the sight of the comatose Lori responding to daughter Megan’s prompting stunned onlookers, Megan told Curry she had never lost hope she would get her mother back.
“I thought she would be able to come back to us,” Megan said.
Since awakening from her coma, it’s been a long, often slow but steady progress toward recovery for Lori. Initially, she would wake up in spurts, and move her mouth a bit when the family played her music from her Ipod. After three days, she began to speak a few words, and she was moved to the nearby Drake Center for a month of intensive therapy.
She had to relearn how to walk and use her hands — even now, her left side is markedly weaker than her right, and she suffers some eyesight problems.
Happy homecoming
Still, she progressed well enough that after 56 days, doctors sent her home Feb. 25. Not only were her new child, grateful husband and adoring children waiting for her, but some 70 family members and well-wishers who organized blood drives and prayer circles while Lori lay in a coma.
“It’s not about me; it was God’s will,” Lori told TODAY of her recovery. “I got here because of all the prayers and help. I could have had the plugs pulled out by the doctors.”
Lori added that the whole traumatic experience is little more than a blur to her at present.
“I don’t remember giving birth at all,” she told Curry. “I remember going up and signing my name on the paper, and then walking back to deliver her, but that’s all I remember. I’m hoping that maybe that memory would come back to me.”
The animated family clearly reveled in being able to appear on TODAY to tell their miraculous story — none enjoying it more than plucky Megan.
“I would also [like to] send a shout-out,” Megan told Curry. “I have a teacher at my school and she would like to say that, Matt [Lauer], she loves him and she thinks he’s very hot.”
Lori Smith added to Curry with a smile that daughter Katie Beth “wants your anchor position.”
© 2009 Microsoft
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Gulp! She swallowed her own engagement ring
Woman’s boyfriend hid it in milkshake to propose; happily, the crisis passed
All’s well that ends well: Reed and Harris got flown to New York to show their elusive engagement ring on TODAY.
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:55 a.m. ET March 2, 2009
A lot of guys try to come up with proposal scenarios that their girlfriends will remember forever. So give Reed Harris credit for accomplishing that goal — even if it turned out to be in don’t-try-this-at-home fashion.The idea was a variation on a common theme: Put the ring in a drink and let his beloved discover it. Harris did his part, hiding the ring in a Wendy’s Frosty milkshake. But, as he and his girlfriend, Kaitlin Whipple, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Monday in New York, she ate the entire shake and never found the ring.
Harris and Whipple had attended an LDS Institute class last Tuesday at San Juan College in Farmington, N.M., where they live. Afterward, they and a group of friends went to a Wendy’s for Frosties. The friends were in on his plans and recorded what they expected to be a heartwarming proposal on a cell phone video camera.
But the other women in the group, eager to hurry the discovery process, made the mistake of challenging Whipple to a race. Being rather competitive, she grabbed a spoon and wolfed down the entire contents of the cup.
“I felt nothing at all,” she told Lauer. “I was racing my friends, so there was no way I was going to lose that competition.”
Harris checked everyone’s cups and didn’t find the ring — gulp! This was not in the script. The video shows him hugging her and whispering in her ear that she had eaten her engagement ring.
Whipple’s gut reaction was disbelief, the story being harder to swallow than the ring.
“I thought he was joking,” she told Lauer. “I couldn’t believe that I swallowed the ring. I kept waiting for him to get down and propose.”
Harris couldn’t believe it either. “It’s not that small a ring,” he told Lauer, a bit defensively.
X-ray marks the spot
Instead of marriage, Harris proposed a trip to the local hospital for X-rays. It was only when the technician handed her an image showing the ring inside her that Whipple accepted the truth.
From the hospital, they went to Harris’ place, where one of their friends pointed out that Harris still hadn’t proposed. So, with X-ray image of the ring in hand, he got down on bended knee and asked for Whipple’s hand in holy matrimony. A friend captured the tender moment in a picture that shows him looking at the camera with a sheepish grin and Whipple sitting with a big smile on the couch — holding the X-ray of her ring.
Ever the gentleman, Harris took the blame for the accident. He had been waiting for the ring to arrive, and had planned to propose Wednesday night during a more formal date at a fancy restaurant. Whipple suspected that he set up the Wednesday dinner date to propose to her.
But Harris told Lauer that when the ring finally arrived on Tuesday, he was so excited he couldn’t make himself wait another day. So he hatched the Frosty plan on the spot.
‘This too shall pass’
The next day — Wednesday — Whipple posted the whole story along with pictures and video on her blog, Krazy Kaitlin. One of the pictures shows her posing with the X-ray along with a bag of prunes and a box of high-fiber breakfast cereal. Her friends, she said, assured her that “this too shall pass.”
On Thursday, she had happy news to report on her blog: “It arrived this morning and I have never been so excited about my bodily functions. Haha. It’s so beautiful and I love it. It was definitely well worth the wait.”
After getting it cleaned, Whipple finally slipped the elusive ring on her finger and posted another photo. But that wasn’t the end of the story. A Salt Lake City television station got wind of the tale and interviewed the couple. Then TODAY called and flew them to Houston to appear on the weekend edition of the show Sunday, then to New York to make two more appearances Monday.
“When I woke up this morning I never thought I’d be getting a call from NBC!” Kaitlin wrote Saturday. “I look forward to it but am scared to death at the same time. National television WOW!” Sunday’s blog entry is headlined “Kaitlin & Reed are in NYC!!”
The couple haven’t set a date for their wedding, but have narrowed it down to either the last weekend in May or the first weekend in June. As for the honeymoon, Whipple wrote on her blog that she hopes more surprises are in store: “Maybe we'll get a cool honeymoon out of this crazy engagement story somewhere down the road ... we can only hope :)”
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All’s well that ends well: Reed and Harris got flown to New York to show their elusive engagement ring on TODAY.
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:55 a.m. ET March 2, 2009
A lot of guys try to come up with proposal scenarios that their girlfriends will remember forever. So give Reed Harris credit for accomplishing that goal — even if it turned out to be in don’t-try-this-at-home fashion.The idea was a variation on a common theme: Put the ring in a drink and let his beloved discover it. Harris did his part, hiding the ring in a Wendy’s Frosty milkshake. But, as he and his girlfriend, Kaitlin Whipple, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer Monday in New York, she ate the entire shake and never found the ring.
Harris and Whipple had attended an LDS Institute class last Tuesday at San Juan College in Farmington, N.M., where they live. Afterward, they and a group of friends went to a Wendy’s for Frosties. The friends were in on his plans and recorded what they expected to be a heartwarming proposal on a cell phone video camera.
But the other women in the group, eager to hurry the discovery process, made the mistake of challenging Whipple to a race. Being rather competitive, she grabbed a spoon and wolfed down the entire contents of the cup.
“I felt nothing at all,” she told Lauer. “I was racing my friends, so there was no way I was going to lose that competition.”
Harris checked everyone’s cups and didn’t find the ring — gulp! This was not in the script. The video shows him hugging her and whispering in her ear that she had eaten her engagement ring.
Whipple’s gut reaction was disbelief, the story being harder to swallow than the ring.
“I thought he was joking,” she told Lauer. “I couldn’t believe that I swallowed the ring. I kept waiting for him to get down and propose.”
Harris couldn’t believe it either. “It’s not that small a ring,” he told Lauer, a bit defensively.
X-ray marks the spot
Instead of marriage, Harris proposed a trip to the local hospital for X-rays. It was only when the technician handed her an image showing the ring inside her that Whipple accepted the truth.
From the hospital, they went to Harris’ place, where one of their friends pointed out that Harris still hadn’t proposed. So, with X-ray image of the ring in hand, he got down on bended knee and asked for Whipple’s hand in holy matrimony. A friend captured the tender moment in a picture that shows him looking at the camera with a sheepish grin and Whipple sitting with a big smile on the couch — holding the X-ray of her ring.
Ever the gentleman, Harris took the blame for the accident. He had been waiting for the ring to arrive, and had planned to propose Wednesday night during a more formal date at a fancy restaurant. Whipple suspected that he set up the Wednesday dinner date to propose to her.
But Harris told Lauer that when the ring finally arrived on Tuesday, he was so excited he couldn’t make himself wait another day. So he hatched the Frosty plan on the spot.
‘This too shall pass’
The next day — Wednesday — Whipple posted the whole story along with pictures and video on her blog, Krazy Kaitlin. One of the pictures shows her posing with the X-ray along with a bag of prunes and a box of high-fiber breakfast cereal. Her friends, she said, assured her that “this too shall pass.”
On Thursday, she had happy news to report on her blog: “It arrived this morning and I have never been so excited about my bodily functions. Haha. It’s so beautiful and I love it. It was definitely well worth the wait.”
After getting it cleaned, Whipple finally slipped the elusive ring on her finger and posted another photo. But that wasn’t the end of the story. A Salt Lake City television station got wind of the tale and interviewed the couple. Then TODAY called and flew them to Houston to appear on the weekend edition of the show Sunday, then to New York to make two more appearances Monday.
“When I woke up this morning I never thought I’d be getting a call from NBC!” Kaitlin wrote Saturday. “I look forward to it but am scared to death at the same time. National television WOW!” Sunday’s blog entry is headlined “Kaitlin & Reed are in NYC!!”
The couple haven’t set a date for their wedding, but have narrowed it down to either the last weekend in May or the first weekend in June. As for the honeymoon, Whipple wrote on her blog that she hopes more surprises are in store: “Maybe we'll get a cool honeymoon out of this crazy engagement story somewhere down the road ... we can only hope :)”
Read more!
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