The following account has been slightly modified for the viewing public to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. I will only say that they are the kind of people who do not seek public notoriety for extraordinary deeds.
I recieved a forwarded email today from my sister. The original email was sent by someone I’ve known and respected all my life, and in the interest of privacy shall henceforth be called W.J. Calitrano. His son Danny has Cystic Fibrosis and the following story welled me up with tears in the middle of the work day and will no doubt send you to the Kleenex. When you’re finished reading, please visit CFF.ORG and make a donation, every gremmie should.
I cried today, uncontrollably, for about a half hour. They were tears of joy, and I don’t think I will be able to get any work done until I share that joy with you.
Earlier in the day I received a call from my dear friend (and former colleague) Bob Ippolito, himself near tears. He had just received a card from my son, Danny, who is sixteen. It was a thank-you card.
Truth be told, I had known that Bob would be receiving Danny’s card, because I had asked Danny to send it. I even bought the card for Danny, and I suggested some language that might be appropriate. However, I made Danny assure me that he would use only words that seemed right flowing from his pen, and I promised not to cramp his style by hovering nearby while he wrote — or even by reading the note, afterward. I kept those promises, leaving the room as Greg began to compose.
A few minutes later, Danny sought me out and handed me the card and envelope, already sealed and addressed to “Mr. Ippolito.” All I had to do was put a stamp on it and drop it in the mail.
The card thanked Bob for an extraordinarily generous contribution that he had just made to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Bob had sent the contribution to me, to forward to the CF Foundation, as part of my own fundraising efforts: My wife Kathleen and I run an annual golf tournament to benefit the Foundation. We founded the event in 1989, shortly after Danny was diagnosed with CF.
Bob’s contribution last week was not the first that he had made to the CF Foundation through our event. Far from it, Bob has been a yearly contributor since the very inception of the event. Each year, of course, I have sent an “official” thank-you note. However, over the years I have become more and more been compelled to do something “extra” to thank Bob, not only because his contributions have been so generous but because — and I pray that Bob will not mind that I mention this — Bob has his own medical struggles. He does not have CF, but his illness, like CF, is debilitating, progressive, and life-threatening. He has multiple sclerosis.
If memory serves, Bob was diagnosed with MS a few years after he had become a regular contributor to our golf tournament. He immediately became a prominent and effective fundraiser for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and his success in coping with the disease and finding the time to devote to fundraising while a full workload (and that’s an understatement) as a labor attorney has been nothing short of inspirational. More inspirational, still, is the fact that Bob’s generosity in supporting the CF Foundation — and, I am sure (knowing Bob), other charitable organizations — has never waned. To the contrary, if anything, he has become more generous each year.
Last week, after receiving Bob’s latest contribution, I began to wonder whether there was any adequate way to express our appreciation. Sending him the standard thank-you note seemed wholly inaequate. I decided to write a special note, just for the occasion. It was the least I could do. In fact, I sensed immediately that it was not enough, which is why I asked Danny to write his own thank-you note. I reminded Danny that Bob has MS, and he accepted the assignment without a moment’s pause. I think he knew that Bob’s receipt of a handwritten note from Danny would convey to Bob the gratitude of the CF community far more effectively than had all sixteen of my earlier thank-you notes combined.
I felt wonderful hearing Bob’s voice this morning, before I realized that he was near tears; I was pleased that he should take that initiative. As the depth of emotion welling up in him became apparent, I was a bit embarrassed. Then something happened that added confusion to my embarrassment: He said that he was going to send “Danny’s contribution” to the MS Society right away.
Contribution? What contribution? Kathleen and I do contribute to the MS Society regularly (not nearly as generously as Bob contributes to “our” charity), but we send those contributions directly to the MS Society, not to Bob.
I asked Bob what he meant. Struggling to hold back the tears, he replied that Danny had enclosed $100 in the thank-you card.
“What do you mean? He put a check in the envelope? I didn’t tell him to do that!” My mind was racing, confused. I knew that Danny did not have his own checking account, and I couldn’t imagine that he would have signed his name on one of our checks; he’s not the kind of kid who would have done somethng like that without asking us. Perhaps Kathleen wrote out the check, I thought. But that didn’t make sense, either; she would have told me about it.
“No,” Bob replied: “Danny put $100 in cash in the envelope.”
Silence, first. But then rays of possibility began shining through cracks in my incredulity. Danny was a generous kid, after all. And he had just recently said that he had saved up about $100, which he kept in his room. (Indeed, I had been thinking that, at 16, Danny should probably have a bank account, and I figured his $100 in savings would be enough to get started. It would be cute to take him to the bank and watch him hand up his stash to the bank officer or teller.)
But, my gracious: Danny had given his money — all of it — to Bob! How extraordinary that a 16-year old boy would would do that. How extra-extraordinary (forgive the redundancy) that he would do it and not even tell his parents. Didn’t he want at least a pat on the back? Could he possibly expect no reward other than the precocious contentment of knowing that he had done a very, very good thing? I know that I would have spoken up, if I had ever done something remotely generous as when I was 16. As a matter of fact, I probably would not have kept quiet if I had done something so generous today.
And that’s my flaw; I know. When giving alms, my right arm always lets my left know exactly what it’s doing. The very fact that I had to share this all with you exposes, I suppose, much of the same shortcoming.
But, like I said, I tried to get some work done, once the tears of joy subsided, after speaking with Bob. I just couldn’t do it; I coudn’t overcome the urge to shout from the rooftop how thoroughly blessed I am to have a son like Danny, a friend like Bob Ippolito, and countless other blessings — including, come to think of it, the means to share this all, instantly, with you.
Thanks for allowing me to do that.
– W.J. Calitrano
