WHAT HOPE AND LOVE CAN DO

WHAT HOPE AND LOVE CAN DO

Her name was “Little Annie” and she was completely, overwhelmingly impossible-to-cure insane. So they put her in a tiny cage and left her there. Sometimes she would scream the whole night through. Often, if anyone entered her cage she would attack them like a wild animal.

Then a retired nurse heard about her and decided to try to get through to her. Each day she would carry her own lunch to just outside Little Annie’s cage and simply sit there and eat. She felt that her presence sent the message that she cared, that someone really cared. Then she began to leave a brownie close enough to the cage that Annie could reach it. Annie continued to completely ignore her, but the next day when she returned, the brownie would be gone.

Soon the doctors began to notice a change in Annie. They allowed her to be taken out of the cage and then to be transferred upstairs. She got better and then better still. Finally she was able to go home.

Love and first class, big-time hope had done its job.