To: Patrick Smith (pat12k62q@aol.com)
Subject: Bobby's Story
I just got this. You have to read it - you're not going to believe it. It's totally true! Just read it!
Carol
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This story was passed on to me by a very reliable source. I received it from a nurse at the hospital where this story took place. Everything is completely true, only the boy's name has been changed.
Bobby was a young boy who lived in a hospital. He had lived there for all of his short life, due to paralysis, a weak immune system, and a love of hospital food. Not being able to move, Bobby spent much of his time watching television.
Bobby's favorite television program was Soul Train, a well-known dance show. The cancer kids in his ward made fun of him for this, singing rhymes like:
"I have cancer, but I can be a dancer!"
"He cries and begs, too bad he has limp legs!"
Despite their ridicule, Bobby couldn't help but dream that one day he would become, like the people on his favorite show, a professional television dancer.
One night, Bobby had a visitor. The visitor was a good-looking black man in an expensive beige trench coat, and carried a gift-wrapped box under his arm. Bobby knew instantly who the man was.
"Are you--?" Bobby asked.
"Yes, I am."
"But, what are you doing here?" Bobby asked eagerly.
The man told him that his mother had registered Bobby at the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Just one week earlier, Bobby had been chosen as a lucky winner.
The man told Bobby that Bobby's mother had visited him, asking to bring Bobby the good news personally. Bobby's mother was persuasive, even for a crippled, mute leper, and it was as a result of her visit that the host of Soul Train decided to visit Bobby at the hospital.
"You get one wish," the man told Bobby. He told Bobby that the wish could be for absolutely anything he wanted.
Bobby was so moved by what his mother had done for him that tears were flowing from his eyes. It was his mother who had allowed him to meet this living legend among TV dance-show hosts.
Suddenly, Bobby stopped crying.
"I know what I want for my wish," Bobby said.
The man asked him what it was.
"I wish that my mother be taken to the best hospital in the world and completely cured of her leprosy."
The man smiled severely. "I'm sorry, Bobby," he said, "but your mother passed away yesterday evening. That is why I came alone today."
Minutes later, when Bobby was able to bring himself to talk, he said quietly, but with a determined sense of pride, "In that case, I want to give my mother the best funeral in the whole world. With the best flowers, the best music, and the nicest ceremony. This is what I want as my wish."
The man put his hand on Bobby's shoulder upon hearing the courageous words.
"I almost forgot," the man said to Bobby, holding out the gift-wrapped box he had been holding. "On the day she visited me, your mother told me to give this to you."
"What is it?" Bobby asked.
"I don't know, why don't you open it?"
Bobby unwrapped the box and removed the lid.
A single, dusty, black and white photograph lay face down on the bottom of the box. Bobby picked it up, and noticed the writing on the back:
"BOBBY AND ME"
Bobby turned the photograph over. In the center was a small baby in a crib, lying on his stomach and screaming in pain. And above the baby, dressed in bell bottoms, a polyester shirt, and wearing a big, black, puffy afro haircut, was Bobby's mother, doing the electric slide on Bobby's back.
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This e-mail stolen from:
www.savethehumans.com
Shock therapy for planet Earth.
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