The Celebration of being Alive

This was a good inspiring story that we had in our text books in our 8th grade if I am not wrong. A real life incident experienced by Dr.Christiaan Barnard, the first Cardiologist ever to perform a successful heart transplantation, it defines that our life is as from the perspective we see it. 

A beautiful quote in that lesson: 

  “We cannot appreciate light unless we have known darkness…nor can we appreciate warmth unless we had suffered cold.”

Story by Christian Barnard:
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I shall never forget the day I saw a ‘GRAND PRIX’ in a children’s ward. In the face of pain and mutilation it was an inspired piece of Joy in Living. It happened spontaneously when someone carelessly left a food trolley unattended in a corner of the ward.A moment’s inattention by the Ward Staff and the trolley was commandeered by an intrepid crew of two … a driver and a mechanic.The mechanic provided the motive power galloping along behind, head down, pushing on the rear rail, while the driver squatted down on the

lower deck of the trolley, clinging on with one hand and steering by scraping one foot on the floor.The choice of roles was easy: the mechanic was BLIND and the driver had only ONE ARM. They put on a ‘hell on wheels’ show that, judging by the yells of encouragement from the rest of the patients, had more spectator appeal than any other road or track race. It ended in a collision of scattered plates and outraged scolding from the ward sister, who brushed aside explanations of ‘Gee Sister, we were only practicing from the ‘GRANPREE” and ordered the offenders back to bed. 

The mechanic was all of seven years old. A child from a slum dwelling, he had lost his sight in a sudden blaze that destroyed not only his firetrap home, but also most of his face. He was partway through a weary round of operations to release his jaw from the mess of scar tissue that had gripped it so solidly that he could only raise his head by opening his mouth.At the time of the ‘GRANPREE’ he was a walking horror but with numerous operations, if all went well, he would have good neck movement, and most of his terrible scars would be covered. But it would be a long and painful time of being wheeled in and out of operating rooms, of healing wounds and the discomfort of heavy bandages. WE WON” he told me, appearing from under the bed clothes minutes after ward discipline had been restored and sister’s awful threats were still hanging in the air. His sunken eye sockets focused on me in the uncanny way of the blind, and his head bobbed up and down. THE MECHANIC WAS LAUGHING! 

The driver was nine. The full book of troubles had been thrown his way when he was seven … beginning with an illness-ridden infancy, an operation for the correction of a faulty heart valve, polio and the loss of leg action, broken bones and recently, an operation to remove his right arm and shoulder because of bone cancer. He explained that the “GRANPREE” crash was due to mechanical failure owing to the fact that his machine was ‘just an old clap trolley’ and the wheels too stiff to steer properly. 

As I left the ward he was trading insults with his mechanic. I had not gone 100 paces when it hit me like a hammer blow. Here were two of the most socially deprived people I’d ever met, and they had just given me a lesson in getting on with the business of living. Since then I’ve often thought of his story of that incident, and I am grateful to those two kids for the insight that the business of living is JOY, in the real sense of the word. Not simply pleasure, amusement, recreation… but more a CELEBRATION OF BEING ALIVE.

Sources: Internet 

- Madhu