Author: Stephen Dill

Consultant to educational institutions experiencing declines in their enrollment. Also involved with the Alliance for Self-Directed Education (self-directed.org) in an effort to give children the freedom they deserve.
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Looking for a cause to support?

I was blessed to get to know Jessie Doktor, a young casualty of childhood leukemia, before her diagnosis and throughout her 6-year battle with the disease. I followed her through the eyes of her parents via their blog at dok.com on a daily basis. Just before she succumbed, she inspired her mother with a phrase that Jessie thought was appropriate for her attitude to the challenge she faced: “Bright Happy Power” (usually said with an exclamation mark at the end). In honor of Jessie’s memory, and in response to the ongoing needs that Gail Doktor knew firsthand from all those years of camping out at Children’s Hospital in Boston, a non-profit called Bright Happy Power was incorporated to “place hope, happiness and empowerment into the hands of and lives of children facing life-threatening and catastrophic challenge”.

Bright Happy Power (BHP) is actively identifying other programs around the world that are addressing the needs of children with cancer. Through the network of people who maintained a constant awareness of Jessie while she was alive (over 187,000 visitors to the blog as of last week), and the–unfortunately–ever increasing list of people new to the cancer challenge coming into Children’s and the Joslin Center in Boston, BHP is directing funds and materials to those programs. If you have an interest in learning what you can do for children and their parents who are focused on this daily battle, click here and make a few additions to your next trip to the grocery store, Walmart or Target.

Please pass this on, you have people in your address book who are looking for a way to help others. No, I haven’t been looking at your address book, it’s human nature to do good for others. Thanks for anything and everything you do to support Bright Happy Power.

Stephen
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“There are two primary choices in life:
to accept conditions as they exist, or
accept the responsibility for changing them.”
— Dr. Denis Waitley
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What “Awash” Feels Like

I recently watched a father walking alongside his child who was barely taller than the father’s thigh. They were walking away from me, and I couldn’t hear them, but the child looking up and the father looking down periodically with mouths moving told me they were engaged in earnest discussion as they walked along. The rush back in memory to the feelings I felt 12 and 15 years ago when I was in the same scenario was immediate and visceral. I was experiencing near-total recall of how I relished the art of conversation with a child who relied on me and loved me.

Now that my children are 18 and 21, those conversations are commonplace and at the level of maturity I began desiring more and more once I realized that 5, 7 and 9 year olds could not sustain conversations long if they were of a theoretical nature or otherwise outside their interests (“Too many words” my wife would say as she shook her head.)

But for that moment, I knew what it felt like to be awash in an emotion, to be immersed in a memory that commandeered my senses.

Then the light turned green and I drove away, but not before looking one last time to silently thank the father and child for unwittingly playing a part in exercising my memory and reminding me of how my own two children have blessed me.

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Reminders of why I live where I do, still.

Went to the polls this morning to vote on local roles to be filled (selectman, planning board, etc.) and to approve a charter commission and the first 9 commissioners. One stretch of sidewalk outside the high school, at the edge of the legal standoff from the doors to the gym where the polling takes place, is lined with the candidates and their supporters holding signs, shaking hands and handing out leaflets.

For some a gauntlet they dread enough to not vote at all, for my wife and I it is a welcome reminder of the fabric we have created here in Sharon, MA. We stop at almost every sign, suporter and candidate, to hug, catch up on life, share stories, reconnect and generally bask in the glow of active community building. It’s such a unique and satisfying experience, I almost wish there were more elections per year for such interaction. And we will be back tonight just before the polls close to hear the Town Clerk read the results, celebrate the victories, and console and encourage those less successful.

Amazing to me how many live in this town, and thousands like it across America, who have never experienced such community, much less understood or appreciated its value. They pay for it in so many ways. And don’t get me started on why small Italian hill towns are more stable and healthy than many  American towns because they come together in the square routinely to keep in touch.