My dear readers I hate the following expressions:
“I can’t”
“That’s impossible”
Am I a blind and unrealistic optimist? No I’m not. It all goes back over 62 years ago to the night that I was born in a small hospital in Galveston, Texas. I was born after a seven and one half months gestation. I was premature. It’s not a big deal now. It was a big deal all of those decades ago. All of the learned pediatricians at the hospital gave my father and mother the bad news that I was doomed and would not live to see the sun rise. One medical resident was in the room. He had just graduated from the University of Texas Medical School. He was not a fully-licensed doctor yet. His name was Dr. Harold Ross. He disagreed with his learned colleagues. He worked over my little underweight body for 12 hours and saved me. I started my life beating impossible odds!
This year two courageous women who I know personally suffered devastating set backs. It left both of them in circumstances that looked hopeless and impossible to recover from. They refused to give up or listen to all of the pessimists. Both of them pulled off miracles and are in better shape now than before their setbacks.
Please allow me now to honor them as follows:
Rebecca S. Darr graduated from the University of Illinois. I have been fortunate to know her for over 14 years. She is a lady of incredible intellect, ability, character, and compassion. She could have had incredible success in business,government, politics, etc. Instead Rebecca decided to devote her life to the poor and disadvantaged. She is now the director of the Wings Program that aids battered and homeless women. Rebecca’s world was shattered when a lightning strike caused the store she used to generate most of her income burn to the ground.
This loss of her income-producing assets occurred at the worst possible moment. Both the State of Illinois and Cook County were broke. Corporate donors were “tapped out.” Private donors also found themselves in a tough economic situation. Many people describe the current situation in Illinois as almost as bad as the Great Depression.
Rebecca never gave up. She never took “no” for an answer. She literally “moved Heaven and Earth” to get her store rebuilt and back in operation.
Mandy Findlater was born in Zimbabwe. When things got bad she sold her apartment and came to the San Francisco Bay area with her suitcases and a few thousand dollars. She struggled and suffered for twelve years to build a life in the United States. Her hard work led her to a logistics manager’s job at a major publicly-traded company. She had the success and economic security she had worked so hard to earn. She had just bought a condominium or sectional title apartment. Then she got the sad news that the area she was in charge of had been sold back to the franchise holders. Her job became redundant. She was given her two-week notice.
When I heard the sad news I was in deep shock. I commented to her that I knew a lot about mortgage loan modifications I offered to help her. Mandy confidently told me that she would have no problem paying her mortgage.
I was not very optimistic about her prospects. Even under the best of circumstances, the San Francisco Bay area has a tough job market. Employers are very picky about who they hire. The current job market has a real unemployment rate in the range of 22%. (Unemployment in the Great Depression was in the range of 25%). There are literally 5 unemployed workers for each open job. I felt that Mandy’s situation was hopeless. I commented to her that, if all failed, McDonald’s was hiring.
Mandy went to work. She started to use the standard job search sites like Monster and Career Builder. Employers who list on these services literally get thousands of resumes for each job opening. Mandy was able to find a better job with another publicly-traded company in San Francisco thanks to Monster.com.
Topics: my personal heroes for 2010
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