Thought you might enjoy this from a great book entitled An Invisisble Thread. ( one to recommend to your book club group) It’s an amazing story of a young boy named Maurice. He grew up in the projects of New York in the worst conditions imaginable. At age eleven, he was a panhandler because there was never anything in his refrigerator….dad was MIA and mom was a drug dealer who eventually went to prison for 2.5 years. He asked a yound lady one day….”do you have any spare change?” She walked away and then stopped in the middle of an intersection and returned to him. By the end of the book, a lifetime friendship had been created and both Maurice and Laura would never be the same. They would meet weekly for lunch at McDonald’s as this unique bond grew stronger each week.
“That’s probably one of the most important messages of the book….the value of simple rituals in a child’s life. However, the most important thing I wanted to give Maurice was confidence. I truly believe it is one of the most important gifts parents can give their children. Maurice was such an insightful child, such a smart boy, and one of the biggest obstacles in his life was that no one had ever told him that. You have to tell your children over and over how special they are, and no one did that for Maurice. I really believe that if children have one person they can truly count on and who they know truly loves them, it makes all the difference in their life. I hoped I could be that one person.”
*** by the time Maurice was 11 years old, he had only received two gifts in his life…..one was a small toy for Christmas at age 4 and the other a joint from one of his family members.
*** Most of his family were drug dealers and many did time in prison. He lived much of his early days in a one room “apartment” where there would be 12 people living there at one time.
*** Today…..he is a proud father saved by the kindness of Laura Schroff who changed his life when she turned around and answered his request for spare change.
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