Got killed by savage cuts, desperate tame elephants need more lands of love

I really love to watch Dumbo back days when I was only a little child. It was amazing to see how an elephant fly by his big ears. Since those days, I believe that everyone who has seen this movie would probably have the feelings like me. That is love and friendliness for this elephantkind of animal. In fact, elephant, after dogs and pets, are one of the closest animals to human. In spite of their huge bodies, they are extremely approachable and funny.

In countries, tame elephants became friends for serving the tourists to go through the jungles. They are tame to be nice, obeyed and friendly with people. But recently I have read about the deaths of two tame elephants in VietNam and to me, this is very shocking news.

I don’t know what your feelings will be after seeing those pictures below…

This is Pak Cu, a tame elephants in Dak Lak, Vietnam. In October 2010, Pak Cu has been attacked by a group of people. At this time, Pak Cu has been tightened by a chain that usually he couldn’t escape from. But Pak Cu tried to run and luckily survived with 217 cuts in his hind legs and tail. Unfortunately, after 2 months, Pak Cu died exhaustedly…

Beckham with deep cuts in his legs

And this is Beckham, another tame elephants in Dalat, Vietnam. He died in April 2011 because people wanted to cut his legs and tail. The cut is so deep that his bone could be even seen outside. He couldn’t runaway but those people also couldn’t get any from him…

Both Pak Cu and Beckham are tame elephants for serving the tourist and under the control of local management. They lived in the jungle but now …

Beckham with deep cuts in his legs

While some of us have always been approving Earth Day, Green Peace and World Wide Protection, there are still others trying to destroy for money. To them, elephant’s tusks, tail and legs are valuable for trading. That is why wild animals, in general, and elephants, particularly, are now threatened to disappearance.

I don’t know what your feelings will be after seeing those pictures…

But if you believe that Earth is a land of love, please raise your voice up, share your feelings with me and send this to others.

Thank you so much! XVAZK2PS8MYU

 

Hungry for your love – My Darling

Hungry for your love

It is cold, so bitter cold, on this dark, winter day in 1942. But it is no different from any other day in this Nazi concentration camp. I stand shivering in my thin rags, still in disbelief that this nightmare is happening. I am just a young boy. I should be playing with friends; I should be going to school; I should be looking forward to a future, to growing up and marrying, and having a family of my own. But those dreams are for the living, and I am no longer one of them. Instead, I am almost dead, surviving from day to day, from hour to hour, ever since I was taken from my home and brought here with tens of thousands other Jews. Will I still be alive tomorrow? Will I be taken to the gas chamber tonight?

Back and forth I walk next to the barbed wire fence, trying to keep my emaciated body warm. I am hungry, but I have been hungry for longer than I want to remember. I am always hungry. Edible food seems like a dream. Each day as more of us disappear, the happy past seems like a mere dream, and I sink deeper and deeper into despair. Suddenly, I notice a young girl walking past on the other side of the barbed wire. She stops and looks at me with sad eyes, eyes that seem to say that she understands, that she, too, cannot fathom why I am here. I want to look away, oddly ashamed for this stranger to see me like this, but I cannot tear my eyes from hers.

Hungry for your love

Then she reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a red apple. A beautiful, shiny red apple. Oh, how long has it been since I have seen one! She looks cautiously to the left and to the right, and then with a smile of triumph, quickly throws the apple over the fence. I run to pick it up, holding it in my trembling, frozen fingers. In my world of death, this apple is an expression of life, of love. I glance up in time to see the girl disappearing into the distance.

The next day, I cannot help myself-I am drawn at the same time to that spot near the fence. Am I crazy for hoping she will come again? Of course. But in here, I cling to any tiny scrap of hope. She has given me hope and I must hold tightly to it.

And again, she comes. And again, she brings me an apple, flinging it over the fence with that same sweet smile.

This time I catch it, and hold it up for her to see. Her eyes twinkle. Does she pity me? Perhaps. I do not care, though. I am just so happy to gaze at her. And for the first time in so long, I feel my heart move with emotion.

For seven months, we meet like this. Sometimes we exchange a few words. Sometimes, just an apple. But she is feeding more than my belly, this angel from heaven. She is feeding my soul. And somehow, I know I am feeding hers as well.

One day, I hear frightening news: we are being shipped to another camp. This could mean the end for me. And it definitely means the end for me and my friend.

The next day when I greet her, my heart is breaking, and I can barely speak as I say what must be said: “Do not bring me an apple tomorrow,” I tell her. “I am being sent to another camp. We will never see each other again.” Turning before I lose all control, I run away from the fence. I cannot bear to look back. If I did, I know she would see me standing there, with tears streaming down my face.
Months pass and the nightmare continues. But the memory of this girl sustains me through the terror, the pain, the hopelessness. Over and over in my mind, I see her face, her kind eyes, I hear her gentle words, I taste those apples.

I think of you everyday and I still miss you

And then one day, just like that, the nightmare is over. The war has ended. Those of us who are still alive are freed. I have lost everything that was precious to me, including my family. But I still have the memory of this girl, a memory I carry in my heart and gives me the will to go on as I move to America to start a new life.

Years pass. It is 1957. I am living in New York City. A friend convinces me to go on a blind date with a lady friend of his. Reluctantly, I agree. But she is nice, this woman named Roma. And like me, she is an immigrant, so we have at least that in common.
“Where were you during the war?” Roma asks me gently, in that delicate way immigrants ask one another questions about those years.

“I was in a concentration camp in Germany,” I reply.
Roma gets a far away look in her eyes, as if she is remembering something painful yet sweet.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I am just thinking about something from my past, Herman,” Roma explains in a voice suddenly very soft. “You see, when I was a young girl, I lived near a concentration camp. There was a boy there, a prisoner, and for a long while, I used to visit him every day. I remember I used to bring him apples. I would throw the apple over the fence, and he would be so happy.”

Love Hug

Roma sighs heavily and continues. “It is hard to describe how we felt about each other-after all, we were young, and we only exchanged a few words when we could-but I can tell you, there was much love there. I assume he was killed like so many others. But I cannot bear to think that, and so I try to remember him as he was for those months we were given together.”

With my heart pounding so loudly I think it wil1 explode, I look directly at Roma and ask, “And did that boy say to you one day, ‘Do not bring me an apple tomorrow. I am being sent to another camp’?”
“Why, yes,” Roma responds, her voice trembling.

“But, Herman, how on earth could you possibly know that?”
I take her hands in mine and answer, “Because I was that young boy, Roma.”

For many moments, there is only silence. We cannot take our eyes from each other, and as the veils of time lift, we recognize the soul behind the eyes, the dear friend we once loved so much, whom we have never stopped loving, whom we have never stopped remembering.

Finally, I speak: “Look, Roma, I was separated from you once, and I don’t ever want to be separated from you again. Now, I am free, and I want to be together with you forever. Dear, will you marry me?”
I see that same twinkle in her eye that I used to see as Roma says, “Yes, I will marry you,” and we embrace, the embrace we longed to share for so many months, but barbed wire came between us. Now, nothing ever will again.

Almost forty years have passed since that day when I found my Roma again. Destiny brought us together the first time during the war to show me a promise of hope and now it had reunited us to fulfill that promise.

Valentine’s Day, 1996. I bring Roma to the Oprah Winfrey Show to honor her on national television. I want to tell her in front of millions of people what I feel in my heart every day:

“Darling, you fed me in the concentration camp when I was hungry. And I am still hungry, for something I will never get enough of: I am only hungry for your love.”

– Herman and Roma Rosenblat
As told to Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D.

 

No Charge – Greatness of Mother’s love

The little boy suddenly came up to his mother and handed her a piece of paper when she was busy in preparing dinner. After his mom dried her hands on an apron, she read it:

• For cutting the grass. $5.00.
• For cleaning up my room this week. $1.00.
• For going to the store for you. $0.50.
• Baby-sitting my kid brother. 0.25.
• Taking out the garbage. $1.00.
• For getting a good report card. $5.00.
• For cleaning up, and raking the yard. $2.00.

Total owed: $14.75 

After reading, his mother looked at him standing there, expectantly. She picked up the pen, turned the paper over and wrote:

• Nine months I carried you while you were inside me: No Charge.
• The times I’ve sat with you, doctored and prayed for you: No Charge.
• For all the tears that you’ve caused through the years: No Charge.
• For all the nights that I couldn’t sleep because of the worries I knew were ahead: No Charge.
• For all the toys, food, clothes, that I gave to you through the years: there’s No Charge, son.
• And when you add it all up, the full cost of real love is, No Charge.

When the boy finished reading what his mother had written, there were great big old tears in his eyes. He looked straight at his mother and said, “Mom, I sure do love you.” And then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote: “PAID IN FULL.”

 

I wish I can Raise All love for My child again

If I had my child to raise all over again,
I’d finger paint more, and point the finger less.
I’d do less correcting, and more connecting.
I’d take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.
I would care to know less, and know to care more.
I’d take more hikes and fly more kites.
I’d stop playing serious, and seriously play.
I’d run through more fields, and gaze at more stars.
I’d do more hugging and less tugging.
I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.
I’d build self-esteem first, and the house later.
I’d teach less about the love of power, And more about the power of love.

Source: Diane Loomans

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other wings.

– Hodding Carter

 

Courage of the Mother and Foster-mother’s 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 her heart out. I am
nervous, jittery and emotional. I trying not to cry.
"Listen, can you hear the sound, hearts beating
all the world around?" she sings.

The lovely face turned up to the light, little round face so dear and familiar and yet so unlike my own
thin features. Her eyes - eyes so different from mine -
look out into the audience with total trust. She knows they love her.
"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. The 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 fills the room. We rise as one to let Melanie know we
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.

From deep inside the safest part of herself,
Melanie heard her birth mother. This heart of courage 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, Mommy?"
I answer her, "Because I am so happy for you and
you did so well, all by yourself!" 

I can feel myself
reach out 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.

Source: Patty Hansen

 

Toomy’s Essay

Soon Tommy’s parents, who had recently separated, would arrive for a conference on his failing schoolwork and disruptive behavior. Neither parent knew that I had summoned the other.
Tommy, an only child, had always been happy, cooperative, and an excellent student. How could I convince his father and mother that his recent failing grades represented a brokenhearted child’s reaction to his adored parents’ separation and pending divorce?
Tommy’s mother entered and took one of the chairs I had placed near my desk. Then the father arrived. They pointedly ignored each other.
As I gave a detailed account of Tommy’s behavior and schoolwork, I prayed for the right words to bring these two together to help them see what they were doing to their son. But somehow the words wouldn’t come. Perhaps if they saw one of his smudged, carelessly done papers.
I found a crumpled, tear-stained sheet stuffed in the back of his desk. Writing covered both sides, a single sentence scribbled over and over.
Silently I smoothed it out and gave it to Tommy’s mother. She read it and then without a word handed it to her husband. He frowned. Then his face softened. He studied the scrawled words for what seemed an eternity.
At last he folded the paper carefully and reached for his wife’s outstretched hand. She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled up at him. My own eyes were brimming, but neither seemed to notice.
In his own way God had given me the words to reunite that family. He had guided me to the sheet of yellow copy paper covered with the anguished outpouring of a small boy’s troubled heart.
“Dear Mother . . . Dear Daddy . . . I love you . . . I love you . . . I love you.” 

Source: Jane Lindstrom

 

I like myself now

I had a great feeling of relief when I began to understand that a youngster needs more than just subject matter at school. I know mathematics well, and I teach it well. I used to think that was all I needed to do. Now I teach children all subjects, not only math. I accept the fact that I can only succeed partially with some of them. I seemed to have more answers than when I tried to be the expert. The youngster who really made me understand this was Eddie. I asked him one day why he thought he was doing so much better than last year. He gave meaning to my whole new orientation.

“It’s because I like myself now when I’m with you,” he said.

– Everett Shostrom

 

Two Brothers

Two brothers worked together on the family farm. One was married and had a large family. The other was single. At the day’s end, the brothers shared everything equally, produce and profit.
Then one day the single brother said to himself, “It’s not right that we should share equally the produce and the profit. I’m alone and my needs are simple.” So each night he took a sack of grain from his bin and crept across the field between their houses, dumping it into his brother’s bin.
Meanwhile, the married brother said to himself, “It’s not right that we should share the produce and the profit equally. After all, I’m married and I have my wife and my children to look after me in years to come. My brother has no one, and no one to take care of his future.” So each night, he took a sack of grain and dumped it into his single brother’s bin.
Both men were puzzled for years because their supply of grain never dwindled. Then one dark night the two brothers bumped into each other. Slowly it dawned on them what was happening. They dropped their sacks and embraced one another. 

Author Unknown

For it is in giving that we receive

– Saint Francis of Assisi

 

The Power of Words – It’s wonderful

Video propagate about “the power of words to communicate. ” The girl in the clip has replaced the words “I am blind, please help” on the cover sheet of the beggar in “It’s a beautiful day and I can not see it. ” Effect of this is very surprising.

 

The Gentlest Need

At least once a day our old black cat comes to one of us in a way that we’ve all come to see as a special request. It does not mean he wants to be fed, or to be let out. His need is for something very different.
If you have a lap handy, he’ll jump into it. Once in it, he begins to vibrate almost before you stroke his back, scratch his chin, and tell him over and over what a good kitty he is.
Our daughter puts it simply: “Blackie needs to be purred.”
Blackie isn’t the only one who has that need: I share it, and so does my wife. Still, I associate it especially with youngsters, with their quick, impulsive need for a hug, a warm lap, and a hand held out – such gestures requiring only a little time.
If I could do just one thing, it would be this: To guarantee every child, everywhere, one good purring every day. Kids, like cats, need time to purr

– Fred T. Wilhelms

Give what you have to someone. It may be better than you dare to think.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow