Irrefutable Success

Have you ever had a wish come true?

Pat Sanders, Direc­tor of Activ­i­ties for Oak­wood Com­mu­nity Liv­ing Cen­ter, knows some­thing about wish ful­fill­ment. When she asked 88 year old res­i­dent Max­ine Neel what her wish would be, if she could wish for any­thing, Maxine’s response was sim­ple and spe­cific: “Ride in an Air Evac Lifeteam helicopter.”

Max­ine had always loved to fly. Her work used to take her across the coun­try, and she rel­ished those long air­plane rides. When her grandson-in-law went to work for the Air Evac Lifeteam com­pany, the idea of a heli­copter ride over the city cap­tured her imagination.

As part of the Sec­ond Wind Dreams pro­gram, Pat wanted to make this wish a real­ity for Max­ine. Sec­ond Wind Dreams is an orga­ni­za­tion focused on “chang­ing the per­cep­tion of aging through inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tional pro­gram­ming and mak­ing dreams come true for elders.”

Pat knew a lot of things had to come together to make this pos­si­ble for Max­ine. She enlisted the help of Maxine’s fam­ily, who jumped at the chance to sur­prise her and make her dream come true. With the assis­tance of Mark Pierce of the Air Evac Lifeteam, per­mis­sion to fly was granted and this dream was ready for take-off!

On the morn­ing of her flight, Maxine’s daugh­ter, Patsy Lit­tle, picked her up at Oak­wood and told her they were going on a short trip that would take about 45 min­utes. Max­ine had no idea she was finally going to get to fly in a heli­copter that day.

When she arrived at the Air Evac Lifeteam heli­pad, she was elated to dis­cover what oth­ers had been plan­ning for weeks.

After the flight, Maxine’s words summed it up beau­ti­fully. “The Lord was with us all the way… It sure is beau­ti­ful up there. It’s a pretty city.” Mis­sion accom­plished! With the help of her fam­ily, Mark Pierce, and a won­der­ful, car­ing lady named Pat Sanders, Max­ine Neel lived her dream.

In a won­der­ful arti­cle in the State Gazette (Maxine’s home­town newspaper) Maxine’s daugh­ter Patsy Lit­tle is quoted as say­ing, “Pat ini­ti­ated it. We appre­ci­ate Pat work­ing hard on it. I think Pat was as excited as Mother was.”

Zig Ziglar once said, “You can have any­thing in life you want if you just help enough other peo­ple get what they want.” By help­ing ful­fill Max­ine Neel’s dream, Pat Sanders expe­ri­enced a very spe­cial kind of joy.

Too often we get so caught up in the busy­ness of life that we miss oppor­tu­ni­ties to bring joy to the peo­ple we truly love. Every­one played a role in mak­ing Maxine’s dream come true, but it began with Pat’s sim­ple ques­tion. It always starts with a ques­tion. Don’t be too busy to ask.

Whose dream can you help ful­fill? Who can you sur­prise like Pat, Mark, and Maxine’s fam­ily sur­prised her?

Now, what are you wait­ing for? It sure is beau­ti­ful up there!

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Tags: Helping Others, Questions, Wishing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Self-Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.