The news about an amazing tale of a desperate WWII pilot’s encounter with a German flying ace reminded me of Grace, a 92 year old woman I met recently. She is an American, but here parents were of Japanese origin.
During WWII America wasn't very kind to people of Japanese origins. When she is now asked what she feels about it, she always says "I forgive them". But the big story is yet to come. So at the end of WWII, she was given the job as a nurse at a military hospital. But they were worried about the reaction of the injured American soldiers returning from Japan towards a nurse who looked Japanese. So the hospital provided her an escort between some places in the hospital. When the soldiers whom she was nursing came to know about this, they volunteered to be her escort.
She told this in the most stoic manner(I am sure my jaw was on the floor), And then it continued. She mothered a special child. The doctors said he wouldn't make it beyond 4 years. He made it to 49. Not only this, she has been a volunteer at the special Olympics for close to if not over 50 years now, winning the best volunteer award.
I stood there, tears running down my cheek. Tears of joy on meeting a person, who could not have lived a better life. I really wanted to hug her, but I just shook her hand and childishly congratulated her over the life that she had led. I wish at the end of my life, I can look back at my life with half this much pride.
