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Subject: [FOLKLORE] Re: Chicken Soup for the Soul: Home Delivery
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 12:31:59 EDT
Courage of the Heart
I sit on the rickety auditorium chair with the camcorder on
my shoulder and I can feel the tears well up in my eyes. My
six-year old daughter is on stage, calm, self-possessed, centered
and singing out her heart. I am nervous, jittery, emotional and
trying not to cry.
"Listen, can you hear the sound, hearts beating all the
world around?" she sings.
Little round face turned up to the light, little face so
dear and familiar and yet so unlike my own thin features. Her
eyes look out into the audience with total trust . . . she
knows they love her. Eyes that don't look like mine.
"Up in the valley, out on the plains, everywhere around
the world, heartbeats sound the same."
The face of her birth mother looks out at me from the
stage. They eyes of a young woman that once looked into mine
with trust now gaze into the audience. These features my
daughter inherited from her birth mother . . . eyes that
tilt up at the corners and rosy, plump little cheeks that I
can't stop kissing.
"Black or white, red or tan, it's the heart of the
family of man . . . oh, oh beating away, oh, oh beating
away," she finishes.
The audience goes wild. I do, too. Thunderous applause,
and they rise as one to let Melanie know they loved it. She
smiles . . . she already knew. Now I am crying. I feel so
blessed to be her mom . . . she fills me with so much joy that
my heart actually hurts. The heart of the family of man
. . . the heart of courage that shows us the path to take
when we are lost . . . the heart that makes strangers one
with each other for a common purpose . . . this is the heart
Melanie's birth mother showed to me. Melanie heard her from
deep inside the safest part of her. This heart of courage
belonged to a sixteen-year-old girl . . . a girl who became
a woman because of her commitment to unconditional love. She
was a woman who embraced the concept that she could give her
child something no one else ever could . . . a better life
than she had.
Melanie's heart beats close to mine as I hold her and
tell her how great she performed. She wiggles in my arms and
looks up at me. "Why are you crying, Mommie?"
I answer her, "Because I am so happy for you and you
did so good all by yourself!" I can feel myself reach out
with tendrils of love and hold her with more than just my
arms. I hold her with love for not only myself, but for the
beautiful and courageous woman who chose to give birth to
my daughter, and then chose again to give her to me. I
carry the love from both of us . . . the birth mother with
the courage to share, and the woman whose empty arms were
filled with love . . . for the heartbeat that we share is
one.
By Patty Hansen
from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul
Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark
Victor Hansen & Patty Hansen
No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without prior written consent from
Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises, Inc.
>>
«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«^i^MISSI ^i^«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«
Richiele Sloan ICQ #63829109 (Missi)
"If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump
with them, I'd be at the bottom trying to catch them.
»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«
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