More courage

Courage in tragic situations inspires me more than anything I can imagine.

This is certainly not taking the easy route. This is not crying in your bath water.

He spent 20 years addicted to alcohol and 14 years to drugs, but he turned his life around. Now, at 48, he spends nearly all his waking hours helping other battered souls, including fathers right out of prison, and drug and alcohol abusers, and fighting the violence that claimed his sons.

It's not just making lemonade out of lemons. It's the selflessness that impresses me. And the lack of self-pity, I imagine.

It's so easy to be bitter and self-absorbed. Too easy. It's much more difficult to see outside oneself, to use pain to make a learning experience for other people.

Ask me who I respect. It's a difficult question I have been puzzling about for a long time. (I've been meaning to blog about "respect" for a while.)

Clearly, those who, in the face of tragedy, pain and suffering, turn their energy to healing others win my respect every time.

At Lamar's funeral, Fuller handed out 250 business cards to young people. He told them he was there for them if they needed him as a father figure.
He's heard from half.
"Sometimes," he said, "I think maybe, just maybe my children were sacrificed for me to be there for so many other children, that maybe I had to lose something close to me to be able to gain a lot more and to give a lot more."