Prepare a speech on “Everything we have today is the gift of our ancestors.”
Answers
Answer:
The Ans-
Explanation:
I normally don’t fret about the speeches I have to give, but this one had me sweating. What was I going to say? What lessons could I possibly share? How on Earth can I give the audience something to remember? After worrying about the speech for weeks, I decided tell a deeply personal story.
May 2013 — I want share some stories with you. The stories of ordinary people — ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
The first story I want to tell you is about a man named James Edward, or J. Edward for short. He was born in 1878. His father was an Irish-American bricklayer who worked himself to death at the age of 32, when J. Edward was only a little boy.
Even though he was only 8 years old, he had to start working to support his mother and siblings, and he worked every day of his life until he turned 90. His story is the quintessential American story: He started with nothing — no money, no connections, and no education — but he worked incredibly hard, focused on helping his family and his community, and eventually became a successful businessman and community leader.
Years later, as he lay dying, his family got a little bigger: two days before he died, he became a grandfather one more time. His daughter-in-law was giving birth in the same hospital, one floor away.
Unfortunately, his story was going turn out differently
Now I want to tell you the story of the mother. Her name was Joan, and she gave birth to a little boy. But there was a problem: The boy was born with a severe bacterial infection that covered his entire body, and he was not expected to live through the night. But Joan refused to accept that, and she took the boy home to take care of him, knowing that leaving him at the hospital was a death sentence.
She went without sleep for days, popping every blister on the skin of that screaming infant, boiling every scrap of fabric that touched his skin, and managed to keep the infection at bay. The boy lived. For years afterward, doctors told her that she saved her son’s life. Without her determination, there was no chance he would have survived.
Like her father-in-law, she stood up when the chips were down, and gave everything she had for someone else. And that boy grew up knowing that he owed his life to his mother.
Unfortunately, his story was going turn out differently.
He could not help his mother when, 15 years later, she was diagnosed with ALS (or Lou Gerhig’s disease) — a fatal, degenerative neurological disease. He could do nothing while she was in agony, slowly dying in front of him. Here was the woman who gave him his life, and then against all odds saved it, and he was completely powerless to help her. That feeling of helplessness still haunts him to this day.
The last thing his mother told him was that she was ready to die — it would release her from the incredible pain she was in — but she “wasn’t done yet” being his mother. Her last words to him were, “I can’t be there for you any more, so I need you to promise me something. I need you to be the best person you can be.”
She gave him one last gift: the gift of setting a lifelong direction. And that boy swore that he would do everything he could to follow it.
She died the next day. And he has been trying to figure out how to live up to that promise ever since.
As you might have guessed, I was that boy. (Forgive me for being a little choked up, but I have never spoken publicly about this before today.)
My mother, Joan, and grandfather, J. Edward, were ordinary people, but they did extraordinary things.
When things became difficult, they didn’t wallow in their sadness or self-pity: They rolled up their sleeves and did something for those around them, and for those that would live long after them. In short, they lived good lives, and they gave something to the future.
I bet you all have stories like this in your family too. Mine isn’t unique or special at all; it’s just the one I happen to know. You all have other versions of the same story — of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. And I think we should all give thanks to them today, on the occasion on your graduation.
In short, they lived good lives, and they gave something to the future.
What did these people — in your family and mine — all have in common? They all lived according to a dream — something we used to call the “American Dream”.