HeroicStories #656: The Beach That Love Built

Wed Mar 22 06:53:29 UTC 2006

Reaching more than 38,500 subscribers in 118 countries, this is...

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HeroicStories #656: 21 March 2006                  www.HeroicStories.com
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The Beach That Love Built                                  Story Editor:
by Russ Towne                                           Joyce Schowalter
California, USA

In early 2004 our daughter nearly died. She spent a month in the
hospital fighting for her life. Since then, Stephanie has had to deal
with the disease as well as many side effects of chemotherapy, steroids
and other harsh medications. She has met each challenge, disappointment
and setback with courage and class.

18 months later, in October 2005, Stephanie dreamt of a party and
bonfire at the beach for her 16th birthday, with friends, relatives, and
her beloved dog Ginger.

It took a while, but we finally found a good beach with the necessary
attributes of allowing dogs and bonfires, plus easy access. Then a week
before her party, Stephanie's disease flared up and 15 glorious months
of remission ended.

Our friend Ian called the night before the party at 9 p.m. and turned
our plans upside down. The small beach we'd selected, and the
surrounding beaches would host a 30,000-person event on party night --
effectively closing them all.

It was a party disaster in the making. We had researched: no other
nearby beach would work.

Our daughter had her heart set on having her dog and a bonfire at the
beach, but as usual she didn't complain. In her young life she's dealt
with much worse things than a spoiled birthday party. This was just the
final straw on a mountain of straws that broke the camel's back; she sat
down and began to quietly cry.

Stephanie quickly decided she'd rather have the party at our home so she
could have her dog and a bonfire. We called the invitees with the
changed plans.

When people arrived at 3 p.m. they found small signs that read: "Welcome
to Campbell Beach. Where Dogs and Bonfires are Welcome. Where the beach
is small, the waves are so far away you must close your eyes to see
them, but not so the love for Stephanie and her little dog, too. Happy
Birthday Stephanie!"

Laid out before them was the smallest, goofiest beach imaginable, built
with love. At a moment's notice Ian and his wife Jayme had created a
beach on our concrete driveway. They had arrived hours earlier with a
car loaded down with 660 pounds of sand, palm trees, beach toys, fish
netting, Tiki torches and much more. Our son Brian and his friend Eric
had helped set everything up.

The beach was built with so much love that it quickly became real to
everyone there. The girls frolicked in the sand, enjoyed the bonfire,
lit torches, had a barbecue, built their own huge ice cream sundaes, and
much more. The birthday girl was lifted up and her face was planted into
her cake despite her laughing protests, which started a hilarious cake
fight.

As the girls laughed and played on the "beach" around the bonfire with
our funny little dog, I felt for a moment that all was right in the
world. I'm so very grateful to our friends for making our daughter's
birthday wish come true.

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Our last story, "15 Miles Each Way" (#655) described a 30-mile ride
given to a stranger by a store clerk, and that stranger's inspiration to
help out someone else in their own time of need. (The full story is
here: http://heroicstories.com/archives.html .)

Ed in Oklahoma: "Being locked out of the car is something that happens
to everyone that drives one, I suppose. What I liked about this story is
that Linda shows us the next step past the person who rescued her,
giving her a ride to get her keys. Linda shows us how this ride sparked
her to assist someone else with a different need. If more of us would
take that lesson from the kindnesses shown us, that would be great."

Gretchen in New York echoes that comment: "The process described in this
story was first illustrated for me in the wonderful movie 'Pay It
Forward' a few years ago.  It's a real inspiration. Warning: be prepared
with plenty of tissues, it's a tearjerker."

Last issue we referred people out to HeroicStories web page "Ripples of
Inspiration":  http://heroicstories.com/prison.html . Rick in Oregon
sent a reply that was typical of those who liked that page: "I work long
days finding errors in other people's software code. Some call me a
'paid hacker', but professionally I am a Quality Assurance Engineer
working in software development. Hal's story of grey all around, no
color, no sound, no music seemed like he was standing right next to me.
Software development is a solitary endeavor when it gets past all the
meetings, discussions and paperwork, down deep into writing the code.
Then I come along and purposely try to destroy the programmers'
creations to cries of 'You aren't supposed to do that'.

Rick continues, "Thank you, Hal, for reminding me why I subscribe to
HeroicStories. My email 'ding' goes off constantly, but the only time I
stop everything and read the email is when I see it is from
HeroicStories. I know a few minutes spent with the stories will brighten
the walls, and fill the air with sounds and fragrances of people not in
this blackened hole of CRT generated light. Thank you from someone who
is not in prison for a crime, but we make our own walls of captivity --
mine just happens to consist of sixteen computers, four monitors,
keyboards, mice and a dull glow off my beta fish."

Joyce Schowalter, Publisher
Co-Conspirators to Make the World a Better Place

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