Posts Tagged ‘help’

Oscar Fulgham thought he was prepared the day a massive tornado leveled much of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The 69-year-old former Army staff sergeant told the Los Angeles Times he’d been watching weather reports and planned to take refuge in his bathroom if the twister moved toward his one-story duplex. But no matter how much you think you’ve prepared for the unexpected, it can still catch you off-guard.

“You can’t believe how fast that thing was moving,” Fulgham said. “The sky turned black, and then it was on us before we had time to think.”

Fulgham made it to the bathroom just as violent winds clawed off the roof, exploded the windows, and blew out the walls. Six seconds. Fulgham survived, but in just six seconds, his home was gone.

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It’s said that during his lifetime, singer Frank Sinatra raised more than a billion dollars for charity. He was known for giving benefit concerts to help a variety of worthy causes, once remarking that he was “an overprivileged adult who ought to help underprivileged children.”

Some of his most popular performances were the private ones he gave for friends and acquaintances who’d been admitted to the hospital. The more serious the illness, the more diligent he was about dropping by and singing a tune to make the patients—and anyone else who could hear—feel a little better.

Few of us are blessed with Sinatra’s extraordinary vocal stylings, but he set a good example of the best way to help people who need to be comforted: Give of whatever talents you have.

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In May 1995, actor Christopher Reeve was in Virginia, on horseback, approaching the third of 18 jumps in the finals of dressage event. The triple-bar was about 42 inches high, but Reeve’s horse, Eastern Express, couldn’t seem to find the proper footing for the leap. The horse stopped abruptly and Reeve pitched forward over the horse’s neck, landing on his head on the other side of the jump.

The accident left 42-year-old Reeve, best known for his big-screen portrayals of Superman, paralyzed and unable to breathe without the help of a respirator. At a tribute dinner a few months later, he described the moment, five days after the accident, when a supportive friend gave him a spark of hope:

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