Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman's Soul: Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit [Paperback] review


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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are co-founders of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Amy Newmark is publisher and editor-in-chief of Chicken Soup for the Soul.






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Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul: Stories of Hope, Healing and Humor (Chicken Soup for the Soul) [Paperback] review


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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are the #1 New York Times and USA Today best-selling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Laurie Hartman has been a single parent for nine years, raising one terrific son who is now 15. Laurie lives in Southern California.

Nancy Vogl is the single mother of three teenage daughters. Formerly a real estate professional, Nancy created a career for herself in the speaking industry, working with many of America's top speakers, authors and celebrities.

Come Back Home

All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and receive help from other people.
~ Alexis Carrel

Finally, I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t making it on my own as a single parent with a four-year-old son and a thirteen-month-old daughter. Reluctantly, I had written my parents asking if I could move in with them until I could find a teaching position and manage on my own. I knew it would not be an easy decision for them to make. Living in a small town, my mother had always worried about “what people would think.”

Her response came more quickly than I had expected. As I held her unopened letter, I wondered if the rapid reply was good news or bad. With careful concern, I tore open the end of the envelope. Her typewritten letter was folded in the formal standard she had learned as a secretary after graduating from high school. It read:

Dear Linda,
You must quit beating up on yourself and feeling so ashamed over needing to move back home with the children because of your divorce. I want you to know that you are not the first woman in our family to be a single parent and fall on hard times. I hope you will find courage and take pride in the woman I am going to tell you about.

Your great-great-grandmother, Hannah Lappin, headed west in a prairie schooner with her farmer husband and three small children: a boy, six; a girl, two, and an infant son. They settled in a secluded section of Missouri. After five years of her husband’s tremendous effort clearing timber, rumors circulated that land, including their claim, was in litigation. Days of anxiety followed, and her husband’s health began to fail. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and his strength diminished steadily. They lost their farm. They made the difficult decision to make the four-hundred-mile trip back to southern Illinois to her family. There was nothing about this trip that held any attraction for a woman with three children and an invalid husband in the early spring of 1876. On many days, he was too sick to travel. At night, he would sleep outside under the wagon.

Inevitably he died, and left his family among strangers in the hill country of Missouri.

He was buried along the trail under a pile of stones. Their eleven-year-old son took the reins of the wagon and skillfully drove the team through the ten-mile-wide city of St. Louis and across the big river, still a hundred miles from their family.
Hannah’s problems were further complicated by her failing eyesight and the awareness that she was several months pregnant. Shortly after arriving at her Uncle David’s home, she gave birth to twin boys. Refusing charity from the state, she took in washing. Making light of her blindness, she promised people, “The stains may still be in the clothes, but I will get the stink out.” Her great poverty and lack of comfort was felt by her orphaned children, but it was no match for her unwavering faith in God and her ability to give thanks in all things. The three youngest sons became ministers. The oldest son returned to the West to build railroads across Kansas to Denver. Ida, her daughter, after ten years of wedded life, was left a widow with four small children. The example of her mother’s faith and determination inspired her, knowing her mother’s burden had been a hundred times heavier.

Linda, did you not realize that World War II made me a single parent while Daddy was overseas for two years? I had to go back to live with my parents on their farm, miles from town and friends. But it was such a blessing in disguise because Grandma was willing to rock you when you had constant earaches, and I was able to help her with her household chores. Your daddy sent us ration books, so I could get sugar and shoes and gasoline to supplement my folks’ needs.

Now that you understand that you were not the first woman in our family to be a single parent, please come back home knowing that your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters and cousins are here to be family for you. With the rich heritage of women who have found a way to give their children a wonderful future, in spite of hardships, you will be in very good company.

Come back home as soon as possible.
Love always,
Mother

Linda H. Puckett
©2005. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul Soul® by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Laurie Hartman & Nancy Vogl






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Chicken Soup for the Soul: Answered Prayers: 101 Stories of Hope, Miracles, Faith, Divine Intervention, and the Power of Prayer [Paperback] review


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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are co-founders of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
LeAnn Thieman is coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Catholic Faith, and Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Book of Miracles.







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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, have dedicated their lives to the personal and professional growth of others.

An Act of Kindness for a Broken Heart
I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything,
but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Edward Everett Hale
My husband, Hanoch, and I wrote a book Acts of Kindness: How to Create a Kindness Revolution, which has generated much interest across America. This story was shared with us by an anonymous caller during a radio talk show in Chicago.

"Hi, Mommy, what are you doing?" asked Susie.

"I'm making a casserole for Mrs. Smith next door," said her mother.

"Why?" asked Susie, who was only six years old.

"Because Mrs. Smith is very sad; she lost her daughter and she has a broken heart. We need to take care of her for a little while."

"Why, Mommy?"

"You see, Susie, when someone is very, very sad, they have trouble doing the little things like making dinner or other chores. Because we're part of a community and Mrs. Smith is our neighbor, we need to do some things to help her. Mrs. Smith won't ever be able to talk with her daughter or hug her or do all those wonderful things that mommies and daughters do together. You are a very smart girl, Susie; maybe you'll think of some way to help take care of Mrs. Smith."

Susie thought seriously about this challenge and how she could do her part in caring for Mrs. Smith. A few minutes later, Susie knocked on her door. After a few moments Mrs. Smith answered the knock with a "Hi, Susie."

Susie noticed that Mrs. Smith didn't have that familiar musical quality about her voice when she greeted someone.

Mrs. Smith also looked as though she might have been crying because her eyes were watery and swollen."What can I do for you, Susie?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"My mommy says that you lost your daughter and you're very, very sad with a broken heart." Susie held her hand out shyly. In it was a Band-Aid. "This is for your broken heart." Mrs. Smith gasped, choking back her tears. She knelt down and hugged Susie. Through her tears she said, "Thank you, darling girl, this will help a lot."

Mrs. Smith accepted Susie's act of kindness and took it one step further. She purchased a small key ring with a plexiglass picture frame -- the ones designed to carry keys and proudly display a family portrait at the same time. Mrs. Smith placed Susie's Band-Aid in the frame to remind herself to heal a little every time she sees it. She wisely knows that healing takes time and support. It has become her symbol for healing, while not forgetting the joy and love she experienced with her daughter.

Meladee McCarty
¬ 1994 Meladee McCarty

All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission of Health Communications, Inc. from A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul.






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Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Resolution: 101 Stories...Great Ideas for Your Mind, Body, and ...Wallet [Paperback] price


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Chicken Soup for the Soul: Say Goodbye to Back Pain!: How to Handle Flare-Ups, Injuries, and Everyday Back Health [Paperback] review


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Dr. Julie Silver is a Harvard Medical School professor and expert in physical medicine and rehabilitation, and chief editor at Harvard Health Publications.






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Chicken Soup for the Soul: Boost Your Brain Power!: You Can Improve and Energize Your Brain at Any Age [Paperback] review


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Dr. Marie Pasinski is a Harvard Medical School neurologist, writer, and speaker, specializing in brain-healthy lifestyles. Liz Neporent is an author and fitness expert.






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Chicken Soup for the African American Woman's Soul (Chicken Soup for the Soul) [Paperback] review


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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are the #1 New York Times and USA Today best-selling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. They are professional speakers who have dedicated their lives to enhancing the personal and professional development of others.

Lisa Nichols, coauthor of Chicken Soup for the African American Soul, is a professional speaker and founder of Motivating the Teen Spirit, LLC, an outreach group for disadvantaged youth. She is recipient of the 2003 Trail Blazers Award, Lego Land Heart of Learning Award, and the Emotional Literacy Award. She lives in Michigan, but spends much of the year in Southern California.

Legacy

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see—or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.
- Alice Walker

Somehow, it just didn't feel right. Maybe it was the way that I was brought up, but it was hard for me to say it. Although I felt blessed and honored to have the opportunity, I just had a hard time saying aloud that I was "a graduate student at Harvard University." After all, I know good and well that I'm just a country girl from Sweetwater, Tennessee, who never saw herself as the Ivy League type, but what impression did that title give people who didn't know me?

I was not alone in this dilemma. Many of my black and Latino colleagues in the Graduate School of Education felt the same way. Several of us had to admit that when we told people we were going to graduate school and they asked where, we answered evasively, "Uh, Boston." It wasn't that we were embarrassed about being smart or weren't proud to be there; it was just that the perception people have of "Hah-vahd," conjured up images of privilege and snobbery. Many of us were first–generation college graduates from lower to middle-class families, and most of us were there because we wanted to give back something of educational value to the underserved students of color in America's schools. We actually discussed more than once whether going to Harvard was an asset or liability when our goal was to return to the neighborhoods we came from, "keep it real," and be taken seriously by regular folks. Would we build a "barrier of bourgeoisie" by having a Harvard degree?

Very quickly it was June and graduation day arrived. An incredibly rich year of reading, writing and discussing educational issues had flown by, and I was standing outside in a processional line with my dorm mates and new friends-so-close-we-were-almost-family from the Black Student Union. I sat dazed in my cap and gown on the same lawn where I'd seen Nelson Mandela receive an honorary degree back in September. I sat in a row of brown faces on the lawn with its giant oak trees that had been there since 1636 and tried to comprehend what in the world I was doing there. While the platform dignitaries waxed eloquent, it felt surreal. I snapped back to reality when it was Hazel's turn to take the platform.

Hazel Trice Edney, graduating from the Kennedy School of Government, was my friend from the dorm and one of the sharpest sisters I have ever met. She had won the speech contest and was believed to be the first African American woman ever to give the graduate student address at a Harvard graduation. Hazel from Louisa, Virginia, who had grown up in a home with no indoor plumbing and became a single welfare mother at age fifteen, had managed to earn her college degree and risen through journalism in the black press, covering politicians like Governor L. Douglas Wilder. She would soon start a Congressional fellowship in Washington, D.C., in the office of Senator Edward Kennedy. Her delivery of the speech was flawless, and we were all proud to know her.

Suddenly, listening to Hazel, proudly watching her represent all of us, it hit me. This wasn't about me. I was there as a representative. I looked up into the branches of the centuries-old trees and thought about what they would have looked like back in 1636. I thought about where my ancestors would have been in 1636 . . . 1736 . . . 1836 . . . even 1936, and how remote the possibility seemed that any of their daughters would ever be at Harvard. I thought about Grandma Mildred, valedictorian of her Cook High class with her career options so limited. No, this degree was not about me at all. This was about standing on the shoulders of my black grandmothers who scrubbed floors and cared for babies—both theirs and others'. Black women whose potential went untapped and whose intelligence was so long ignored. Women whose great minds could have been idle, except they rerouted genius, pouring it into rearing the next generation. This degree was for my grandma, who was a farmer's wife and a housekeeper, but never just that, like so many black women seen only as the shadow domestic by the outside world but who stood out as pillars of dignity in their own communities. This degree was dedicated to a woman who had to sacrifice many of her personal dreams as a young woman, but made sure all eight of her children had a respect for education and would ascend to the level of their own potential. It was dedicated to a woman who passed on heritage to her numerous grandchildren with old Ebony and Jet magazines, her gardens and recipes, family stories and photo albums. I was here because she could not be, but had the self-respect and insight to pass something significant on to her offspring.

Sometimes I still have a hard time knowing just what to say when people ask me about graduate school, but right there in Harvard Yard, I made my peace with it. Grandma Mildred didn't know it, but when I walked across that stage, I did not just get my own degree. I held in my hands her honorary degree in motherwit, holistic medicine, childhood development, home economics, culinary arts and botany earned by life experience. That degree was about stepping up to accept my responsibility to follow in her footsteps and pass something on. Thank you, Grandma, for your legacy.

-Jerilyn Upton Sanders







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Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for the Young at Heart: 101 Stories of Inspiration, Humor, and Wisdom about Life at a Certain Age (Chicken Soup for the Soul (Quality Paper)) [Paperback] price


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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are co-founders of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
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Chicken Soup for the Soul: On Being a Parent: Inspirational, Humorous, and Heartwarming Stories about Parenthood (Chicken Soup for the Soul (Quality Paper)) [Paperback] review


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Chicken Soup for the Soul is a favorite publisher of books about family with many bestselling books about family and personal dynamics.
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are co-founders of Chicken Soup for the Soul.







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Chicken Soup from the Soul of Hawaii: Stories of Aloha to Create Paradise Wherever You Are [Paperback] review


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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are the #1 New York Times and USA Today best-selling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Sharon Linnea is the author of the biography Princess Kaiulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People, which won Bookselling This Week's "Pick of the Lists" (ABA) and the New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age List and many others. Linnea's other books include Raoul Wallenberg: The Man Who Stopped Death and America's Famous and Historic Trees, with noted arborist Jeff Meyer, with a PBS series of the same name. She is the head writer for the New Morning show on the Hallmark Channel, a frequent speaker at writer's conferences and lives in Warwick, New York.

Robin Stephens Rohr is an author, publisher and photographer. She coauthored the best-seller The Powerstones-Letters to a Goddess, and was featured on Fox network's Encounters. She is on the advisory committee for the Naupaka Award, sponsored by the Waikoloa Foundation, whose mission is to perpetuate Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian environment, and to support educational and leadership programs for native Hawaiian people. She lives in Hawai'i.

Strangers in Paradise
When you live in Boston, Massachusetts, and it's February, the thought of visiting Hawaii can defrost you. Over and over again, like a multi-sensory mantra, I'd close my eyes and conjure up pictures and sounds and soft feelings about a place far away . . . off the edge of some maps. Palm trees came to mind, with waving fronds like ballerina arms, and teal water washing over whole-wheat sand. There would be big red friendly hibiscus and smiling people.

And then I'd bolt awake from my tropical meditation. The soothing images of Hawaii would be repainted instantly with the scene right in front of me: packing tape and cardboard boxes. My husband and I were two days away from moving to Hawaii and leaving New England for good. Good as in forever, not good as in goody.
We were leaving our home, our friends, our families and two jobs, for one job and the hope that it would all work out. I was counting on what they called the "aloha spirit"ùthe kindness of the Hawaiian peopleùwhich I had read about. I just hoped the aloha spirit was a real thing, not the invention of a gifted travel writer or the Hawaii Visitors Bureau.

If only I was as thrilled about moving to Hawaii as everyone else was on my behalf. "Paradise, wow! You're so lucky!" they all said when they heard about my husband's new job. Coworkers, friends, even our families seemed to be more fixated on sun and surf than on missing us. Well, maybe not our families, but they, too, were pretty excited about the prospect of a free place to stay. I think Hawaii has a hypnotic attraction, even for those who've never been there.

I was scared of moving to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. To an island that I couldn't drive off of. To a place that is closer to Manila than Manhattan.

Yes, Hawaii would be warm, but sunshine alone is no elixir for happiness. If it was, there would be no suicides in summer. I would need more than good weather: I would need friends and a job; I would need to learn my way around and figure out how to pronounce all of those vowel-filled mouthfuls.

By the time our plane touched down, thirteen hours after leaving, it was 12:30 a.m. in Boston. I later learned that the thunder, wind and heavy rain that greeted us upon our arrival at the Honolulu International Airport is something called a Kona storm. The winds change their usual direction and dump a nasty bit of weather in their confusion. The rain was actually pouring sideways, in horizontal sheets. They say it doesn't happen often. And my feelings were hurt that it happened to us.
When morning finally found us at our new address, the sun was shining. Not just shining; it was pouring brightness into each room, like it was making up for last night's outburst. I walked from our unfamiliar bedroom to our kitchen to our living room and saw them all for the first time with daytime eyes. Our landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Higuchi, had kindly left a futon for us to use until our stuff arrived. I thought the fridge would be as empty as the rest of the little house but opened it anyway and found fresh banana muffins and guava juice inside. We enjoyed that first breakfast on our futon-cum-couch-cum-dining room table.

At the front door, I kissed my husband for longer than usual and wished him good luck at his first day of work; he wished me good luck, too. Down at my feet I was surprised to find a bouquet of long-stem red ginger, tied with raffia, and a note which read, "Aloha, friends." It was signed, "The Kalanis, next door."

From the phone in the otherwise empty living room, I dialed information and thought I had gotten a wrong number when a real person answered. "Aloha. Thank you for calling GTE Hawaiian Tel. This is Leilani. How may I help you?"

"Oh, Leilani, I need a lot of help!" I said.

After she gladly gave me the number of the Kalanis, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the closest bank, Leilani asked if there was anything else she could help me with. "Yes, Leilani," I said, "Could you be my best friend?"

Leilani didn't end up becoming my best friend, but she did take the time to give me explicit directions to the grocery store, the recommendation of a woman who cuts hair for $20, an explanation of mauka and makai-and her home number, in case I had any other questions!

I had a lot of questions for Leilani. Ones I'd never bother her with. But I realized, by the end of that first morning, that one of my questions had already been answered. Hawaii was filled with strangers who could be my friends. And it wasn't the sunshine alone that makes Hawaii feel warm.

Jana Wolff

¬2003. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Chicken Soup from the Soul of Hawaii by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Sharon Linnea, Robin Stephens Rohr. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.







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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, have dedicated their lives to the personal and professional growth of others.

1
Love At Work
Work is love made visible.

Kahlil Gibran

Jessie's Glove

A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.

William J. Bennett
I do a lot of management training each year for the Circle K Corporation, a national chain of convenience stores. Among the topics we address in our seminars is the retention of quality employees—a real challenge to managers when you consider the pay scale in the service industry. During these discussions, I ask the participants, 'What has caused you to stay long enough to become a manager?' Some time back a new manager took the question and slowly, with her voice almost breaking, said, 'It was a $19 baseball glove.'

Cynthia told the group that she originally took a Circle K clerk job as an interim position while she looked for something better. On her second or third day behind the counter, she received a phone call from her nine-year-old son, Jessie. He needed a baseball glove for Little League. She explained that as a single mother, money was very tight, and her first check would have to go for paying bills. Perhaps she could buy his baseball glove with her second or third check.
When Cynthia arrived for work the next morning, Patricia, the store manager, asked her to come to the small room in back of the store that served as an office. Cynthia wondered if she had done something wrong or left some part of her job incomplete from the day before. She was concerned and confused.

Patricia handed her a box. 'I overheard you talking to your son yesterday,' she said, 'and I know that it is hard to explain things to kids. This is a baseball glove for Jessie because he may not understand how important he is, even though you have to pay bills before you can buy gloves. You know we can't pay good people like you as much as we would like to; but we do care, and I want you to know you are important to us.'

The thoughtfulness, empathy and love of this convenience store manager demonstrates vividly that people remember more how much an employer cares than how much the employer pays. An important lesson for the price of a Little League baseball glove.

Rick Phillips
Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

No one can deal with the hearts of men unless he has the sympathy which is given by love.

Henry Ward Beecher
Throughout my career in sales, I've wondered about difficult customers. What makes them so mean? How can they be so unkind? How can a perfectly rational person suddenly lose all sense of human decency?

One day, I had an insight into their thinking. It happened while visiting my husband's music store. He was working with a customer and we were short-handed. So I did what every good wife would do: I tried to wait on customers.

'I'm looking for music,' said a gnarled man, a soiled John Deere cap pulled down tightly over his thinning gray hair. 'The name of the song is . . .' and he uncrumpled a grimy sheet of mimeographed paper from his jeans pocket, ''Stairway to Heaven.' Do you have it?'

I stepped to the wall displays of sheet music and scanned for the name. On a good day, the music filled slots in alphabetical order. On this day, the alphabet skipped around. I searched for several minutes, conscious of his growing restlessness.

'No, I'm sorry but it doesn't look like it's here.'
His back arched and his watery blue eyes narrowed. Almost imperceptibly, his wife touched his sleeve as if to draw him back. His narrow mouth twisted in anger.
'Well, ain't that just grand. You call yourself a music store? What kind of a store doesn't have music like that? All the kids know that song!' he spluttered.
'Yes, but we don't carry every piece of music ever . . .'

'Oh, easy for you! Easy to give excuses!' Now his wife was pawing at his sleeve, murmuring, trying to calm him the way a groom talks to a horse gone wild.
He leaned in to me, pointing a knotty finger at my face. 'I guess you wouldn't understand, would you? You don't care about my boy dying! About him smashing up his Camaro into that old tree. About them playing his favorite song at his funeral, and he's dead! He's gone! Only 18 and he's gone!'

The paper he waved at me came into focus. It was the program for a memorial service.
'I guess you wouldn't understand,' he mumbled. He bent his head. His wife put her arm around him and stood quietly by his side.
'I can't understand your loss,' I said quietly, 'but we buried my four-year-old nephew last month, and I know how bad that hurts.'
He looked up at me. The anger slid from his face, and he sighed. 'It's a shame, ain't it? A dirty shame.' We stood in silence for a long moment. Then he fished around in his back pocket and pulled out a worn billfold. 'Would you like to see a picture of our boy?'

Joanna Slan

©2008. Rick Phillips and Joanna Slan. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street , Deerfield Beach , FL 33442.







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Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, have dedicated their lives to the personal and professional growth of others.

Hanoch McCarty is an internationally acclaimed author and motivator who has presented his stories and research-based insights to audiences around the world. He is the author of Motivating Your Audience: Speaking from the Heart, as well as twenty other books and training programs. The McCartys are coauthors of A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul; Acts of Kindness; A Year of Kindness; and, The Daily Journal of Kindness

Meladee McCarty is a program specialist for the Sacramento County Office of Education and works to provide educational programs for students with disabilities. The McCartys are coauthors of A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul; Acts of Kindness; A Year of Kindness; and, The Daily Journal of Kindness.

Lemon Love
My grandfather gave me the world when he gave me his love.

I never had to guess if the wonderfully weathered old man, whose eyes smiled brighter than his mouth, loved me. Unlike many of his generation, he believed in saying so. "DonÆt tell my other grandchildren," he would say with a voice become as familiar as my own heart-beat, while he gently herded me to an ice cream stand before supper, "but you are my favorite." It was high praise since I was the 24 th of 27 to be delivered into his happy embrace.

Grandpa would have done anything for me, but since love is all about the little things, he was always willing to busy himself with some project meant for my happiness. There was the double-benched swing, crafted in his farm workshop, upon which I spent endless afternoons inhaling the scent of spring wildflowers, while prairie clouds morphed from tempestuous oceans, to families of waddling ducks, to snow-crested mountain peaks only as far away as my imagination made them.

In the house, where my grandmother tended an oven that never went cold, I carried baskets full of romping kittens each spring, played tuneless melodies on an antique pump organ and felt safer than I ever have since.

Summer months meant that I could spend more time away from the confinements of city life. Only a twenty minute drive from our home, my mother often made the trip with me, past fields of golden wheat, and into the company of my grandfather.

On one visit that was meant to be short, I soon forgot myself in the midst of childish bliss. On a tireless red wagon, I pulled all the ingredients of a lemonade stand to the edge of my grandparentÆs property, where a county road intersected a sprinkling of homes, and where other children walked the dusty path to visit friends and family.

Excitedly, I peddled my refreshments to the few people who passed by, counting the meager change that was far from the point of my endeavor.

My enthusiasm withered, however, when the approaching form of my mother reminded me of an appointment I knew I would not be permitted to miss. "But who will sit at my lemonade stand?" I wanted to know, imparting it all the importance unlost innocence always does.

"I guess you will have to pack it away until another day," she replied with regret. Mournfully, I began to obey, slowly replacing my hand-made sign, cups and pitchers into the wagon before loading on the table and chair.

From the house, where I had been visible through the window, Grandpa came stepping across the expanse of grass with a stiffness reminding me my best friend was not my own age.

Without a word, he gently touched my cheek with a rough finger and bent to undo the work I had reluctantly done. He seated himself in the chair and unfolded a newspaper. "It is a nice day for lemonade," he said. "Hurry back and weÆll share some."

When we returned later, Grandpa was still at my post, the newspaper abandoned in favor of a needle and thread and some clothes in need of mending. In the small box where I had begun to deposit my earnings was more change than could be accounted for had the entire village showed up for a drink.

Together we sat by the road for a little while longer. As the sun began to go down and Grandma called us in for supper, we dismantled our stand and walked back to the house.

Darcie Hossack
¬2002. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Chicken Soup for the Grandparent's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Maladee and Hanoch McCarty. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442.







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