Greenman248

Ok, I wasn’t brought up by wolves but here’s an anecdote if you’re interested:

Last summer, I went on a trip with my church down to West Virginia. The trips started 22 years ago when a kid and a couple of his friends heard on the television about a flood in West Virginia. The people’s houses were devastated, and the government relief organizations couldn’t keep up with the need. Then in high school, the group decided to go down with their parents’ toolboxes and a pick-up truck full of wood and supplies to help out. They spent a week down there helping out those affected by the floods, but they couldn’t help but notice that even the people who lived above the flood plains needed help. They found a new niche of America unknown to them, the impoverished Appalachia region. Deciding that the area truly needed help they organized a trip to go down every summer. When I first heard this story, I realized that there was no personal gain in the motivation of doing this. They decided to help out of the goodness of their hearts. My brother and sister have both been on the Appalachia trip twice. Whenever I asked how the trip was, they said it was a lot of hard work. I thought there must be something more to it than that. Why spend a perfectly good week in August down in humid West Virginia hammering nails and sawing wood? Then I saw the pictures and read the stories of some of the people we were going down to help. I remember families of 6 living in one-room houses. I remember a family who lived in a trailer so trashed and molded that the roof leaked. They had built a wooden canopy over the top, just so they can sleep in dry beds. I remember a family of 5 – a grandmother and her 4 grandchildren – who’s house didn’t have a bathroom. They had an outhouse and they went a mile down the road to a neighbor to shower when they could. This was the family my group was eventually assigned to. These people needed help. I went down to help them, there was no other motivation. Throughout the week, the grandmother slowly grew comfortable with us. On Monday, she said hello and went back inside the house. On Tuesday, she came out with her grandchildren and introduced us to Donovan, Dominique, Dante, and Desere. They were all under 10 years old. Wednesday, I taught Donovan how to hold a hammer and we threw around a baseball. Thursday, Martha – the grandmother – put out a platter of meat and cheese. Friday, Martha bought a cake and brownies. We had a picnic on their picnic table. We left on Saturday. Before leaving, Martha said two simple words, “Thank you” and hugged each of us. Those two words meant more to me than any of the thousands of words we had exchanged with her and her family throughout the week. So simple, yet so loaded with emotion and gratitude. She started crying, and soon enough we were all crying. That feeling I had in my heart when I left was like nothing I had ever experienced before. We had made someone genuinely happy. I’m a funny person, I’ll admit that. I crack jokes and make people laugh every day of my life. I thought I was used to a positive attitude, used to making people happy. My week in Appalachia was nothing like that. It was a new feeling for me, a new feeling for all of us. I had helped someone who needed help. There was no ulterior motive than to help them, no self-benefit in my head. I was there to help Martha, to help Donovan, Dominique, Dante, and Desere. I did, and I received something incredible in return. I got just a quick moment of that feeling that I had helped them. I would give all the money in the world if I could feel like that all the time. That is the reason why Fred, the trip leader, has been going down for twenty-two years. That is the reason why I am going again this summer. It will be a different family this time, a different situation. But still the same reason, the same feeling.

Sha-bam, happy? And yes, its a true story. About me.