Free Chicken Soup for the Soul: Children with Special Needs by Jack Canfield

is now a third-grader and an active member of Elon Presbyterian Church. This past year, Jean raised over $300 for her school’s Jump Rope for Heart for the American Heart Association, in memory of her best friend, Ian Mapes, who died of heart complications last August.
     

One Brief Hour
     
T here is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.
Helen Keller
     
    For one brief hour on a sunny June afternoon, my life intersected with a nineteen-year-old young man. He walked away from that hour with his life changed forever. I walked away with an empty leash and a full heart. Two years before, my family and I had just returned from living overseas in Hong Kong. We had lived in a forty-four-story high-rise for four years, and were now back to our American lifestyle, backyard included. All that was missing was a dog for my eight-year-old son.
    My husband, not a dog lover, thought he had found a way to table this discussion indefinitely. “Find a purpose to having a dog, son, and then we’ll talk.” That very week, Tad brought home a permission slip for a field trip to travel to Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) in San Rafael, California. Being a dog lover, I volunteered to chaperone. Voilà! We had found a purpose. Tad and I attended the weekly puppy meetings, filled out paperwork, studied the manual we were given by GDB, and within a month or so, we were on our way to pick up a little eight-week-old yellow Lab male puppy named Arbor.
    About that same time, in Olathe, Kansas, nineteen-year-old Jonathan Hill began to fill out his paperwork to apply for a guide dog. Nearly blind from a rare syndrome called Bardet-Biedl, a genetic disease that results in progressive blindness, Jonathan didn’t let his poor vision limit his life. Not by a long shot. An Eagle Scout, avid hiker and camper, and a college student, Jonathan had big plans for life with his future guide. After completing the lengthy application, Jonathan had to wait for Guide Dogs for the Blind to contact him, meet him, and see if he met their qualifications. He was selected, so now his job was to wait until a spot opened up for him in class.
    Meanwhile, back in California, our first objective was to help Arbor discover the joys of using the great outdoors for his potty. The next objective was to start basic training: sitting, laying down, waiting, and not chewing up everything that got close to his tiny, razor-sharp teeth. And, of course, we gave him lots of love. Every Tuesday night, we packed Arbor into the car and zoomed off to our weekly puppy-training classes.
    In his official little green jacket, he was proudly welcomed at supermarkets, church, and restaurants. More often than not, outings to socialize Arbor were very successful. Once or twice, our cheeks burning, we cleaned up after an unfortunate miscalculation of his need to relieve himself. And Arbor grew, and grew, and grew.
    By the age of one year, he was well over eighty pounds. And just a few months later, we received word that Arbor had been recalled to Guide Dogs for formal training. When we dropped off our gentle giant at the facility, I thought I heard someone mutter, “Sheesh . . . the Schmaltz family is here.” It was true. We were bawling. Even my stoic husband shed a few tears. So now our job was to wait.
    Every few weeks, we received a new report of how Arbor was progressing during the ten-phase, four-to-six-month training program. As he neared phase eight, I let myself start thinking that he might really do it. He might just graduate! Jonathan was now allowed to pack and arrive at Guide Dogs for his one-month training program. Throughout the month, from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Jonathan and Arbor, who had been matched together based on personality type and need, worked on becoming an unstoppable team.
    Twenty-eight days after Jonathan arrived at Guide Dogs, he and I met for the first time, right before the graduation ceremony. Immediately, I sensed