Final tone sounds for ‘Overbearing Samaritan’

“When I was 4 years old I got a chance to shake John F. Kennedy’s hand, as my aunt was part of his campaign team in Wisconsin. He gave me a PT boat tie-tac. My cousin Davey Christian played on the Miracle on Ice Team in 1980 at Lake Placid. He gave me a signed hockey stick. My cousin, Betsy Wolheim, owns Daw publishing here in New York and she gave me lots of pointers when I wrote my first book. 
I have stood in the shadows of some great people. Jimmy Lanza was 5 foot 5 inches tall – give or take an inch – and of all the people I’ve ever met, his shadow was the biggest I’d ever been enveloped by. For a guy with a size 8 shoe, I couldn’t begin to fill his footprints.” 
– From the Eulogy for Jimmy Lanza, by Mark DeLap
 
There are some people who can alter YOUR course with THEIR experiences. They can renew your hope with their words. And they can break your heart with their passing. All good things, they say, must come to an end. A very good thing came to an end this past week when we said goodbye to a man who never thought of himself too highly. A man who knew the difference between confidence and arrogance. Confidence in what you know you can do for others versus arrogance in what you know you can do for yourself.
Confidence can save a life. Jimmy Lanza saved mine.
 
I was not one of the survivors that he rescued on 9.11 at the World Trade Center. Instead, I was battling to find my way out of the rubble of my own life. Without going into the painful details of what I was facing, I will say that this is not about me, but about him.