What is a chair? What is its intent? To provide rest after a hard day? To give order to the dinner table? To pull up in front of the TV set? All of the above? Yet a chair is never more than an in-between stop. In time you rise and get on with your life.Unless it is a wheelchair.Unless you cannot rise.Unless, your life, like Mo Gerhardt's, is shadowed by a congenital disease like Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, an often fatal affliction that robs you of the protein you need to build muscle. In cases like his, a chair looms the way the horizon looms for a setting sun.
Ialways laugh when politicians tell voters who is "fit to lead." It reminds me of a cat telling mice where they should hide.Last week, John Kerry told us John Edwards, his new vice presidential candidate, was fit to lead, even though earlier this year he criticized Edwards, saying the White House "was no place for on-the-job training."Edwards, for his part, told groups of cheering fans that his new boss was fit to lead, even though a few months ago, Edwards was doing his best to knock Kerry out of the race.
The loading dock area where the players come out was still mobbed with people, nearly an hour after the game. They thumped ThunderStix and screamed at a glimpse of their heroes. Ben Wallace hid inside his SUV, talking on the phone, waiting for the crowd to clear. Tayshaun Prince tried to stay out of sight, against the wall, but someone spotted him and began screaming, "Tayshaun! Tayshaun!" and soon a hundred people were screaming it, too. Rip Hamilton emerged through the door and blinked, as if he'd awoken to find a marching band in his bedroom.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
