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WHO IS A
HERO?
by Mostafa Vaziri
There are times in life when the deepest human part of us
is expressed and touched. This short writing is not just a
collection of English words or a short story for our entertainment,
it is an expression of one of the deepest layers that one
can experience as a human being.
Often times we people become so involved with our daily life
and activities that we pay little attention to what is far
from our mainstream activities. We working in MEPO, like many
other charity organizations, are also busy too structuring
our activities, trips, and projects and raising funds for
our free-of-charge medical and educational services. But we
usually try to know some of our donors, who are composed only
of private individuals. On one of these occasions we became
curious about one name ...
Yes, it was correct, it was Mrs. Lois Lide, Nana, a 94-year-old
great-grandmother who lives in a seniors home in Huntsville,
Alabama, USA. She had offered us her contribution with a check
of a hundred dollars, knowing that she lives a modest life
on a fixed income and that she needs the money herself to
get new clothes, glasses or other things. Furthermore, we
wondered how she could have read our brochures with her extremely
weak vision, unless she had other people to read it for her,
or that she would reach a conclusion to help a charity organization
in remote Nepal! BUT SHE DID...!
She looked beyond herself and saw far into Himalayas where
she, in her deepest intuition, saw and felt poverty. She must
have seen herself standing in front of a group of needy people
in Nepal. The culmination of her emotions, and her sense of
humanity and need for sharing must have been an irresistible
human impulse for this 94 year old heroine.
Then in the summer of 2001, when MEPO called for buying decent
tents for the Afghan refugees living in the Jaluzai camp in
Pakistan, she again sent a check of $500 to help the refugees
who were living in the plastic tents. Please understand that
if a company or a rich person had sent this amount we would
have taken it as a gesture of generosity and compassion, but
Nana had sent this money from her limited income. And some
months later she again contributed, this time to MEPO’s
appeal for space blankets to help those caught in the Afghan
winter.
This wise and gentle lady in Alabama can do nothing but touch
the deepest layer of one's humanity. By these acts of looking
beyond herself, she also expressed her deepest and most sincere
sensitivity in circumstances where she could just as easily
instead ask for help for herself. Needless to say, without
the presence of such individuals designated by Mother Nature,
maybe the world would cease to exist. Her presence in this
world must have brought about other fundamental contributions
which have impacted her environment and the world at large
in ways which she may not even be aware of. Nana’s deep
drive and actions to reach out and help others, from nurturing
her friends and neighbors to aiding cold and impoverished
families on the other side of the planet from Alabama, make
her a true and indomitable light in this world.
We heartfully pay tribute to Nana and bow to her great sense
of honor, nobility and to her very important presence in this
world.
From the accidents of this reproductive world
do not fear
Whatever happens to you, since it is not lasting, do not fear
Value the passing and short life
Let go what is gone and the future do not fear
-Rumi
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