Heroes

Summer of 2006 was a rather interesting time for me. I was single, learning how to deal with my wandering spirit without picking up and moving to the East coast. I've always lived near the ocean or another large body of water, except when I was in Denver or Phoenix. So it was only natural that I migrate towards the coast again for my own mental and emotional health, to center myself in certain ways. After watching the Hitchcock classic "The Birds" and realizing finally after having seen it for the umpteenth million time, that it was filmed in the cities of Bodega and Bodega Bay. It was a natural choice to start the centering of myself, so I picked up and headed to the coast. I did this for nearly 2 full months of weekends, it wasn't until probably the 3rd or 4th trip to the coast that I came across a little turn out that had a couple of cars in it.

I decided to stop to see what it was all about, it was a nice warm day with a light breeze coming from the sea, the salt in the air always a welcome scent. The grasses were golden, and the sun was near the horizon, but still allowed for an hour or so of day light. I found the dirt path that slowly turned into sand, on this path there was a stone monument with a brass plaque on it, with flowers, toys and all sort of gifts setting on and around it. I stopped to read and found out that this was a monument dedicated to Nicholas Green of Bodega Bay, for those of you who don't recognize his name, he was the 7 year old boy who was shot by highway robbers in Messina Italy, he died a couple days later from his injuries, and his parents Reg and Maggie decided to donate his organs. This was nearly unheard of in Italy at the time, and I remember how much of an impact this made to the people in Europe, especially to the 2 people who gained eyesight, and the 5 who gained a new lease on life, 4 of which were teenagers. The Italians were astounded that this family who had just lost their 7 year old son to robbers in their country and would be willing to donate his organs so that others might live, that the country opened it's heart to the family raising donations for the family.

In the wake of the events, the Greens have done a tremendous amount of work to raise awareness for organ donations, writing books and articles, made a video, gave interviews, answered letters and started a group called The Nicholas Green foundation . Today the foundation gives out their Nicholas Green Distinguished student award to 1 student from each state, they also award 1 Italian doctor a grant to come to the states to study the most advanced organ transplant techniques.

I digress though.

The plaque went on to tell of The Children's Bell Tower, the tower was built in 1995 by artist Bruce Hasson, this monument is about 18' tall, consists of 3 towers stacked on each other, and has 140 bells which were gathered from all over Italy, some of which are over 100 years old. These bells were donated from schools, churches, mines, ships, and some were even family keepsakes. There's even 1 cowbell. Some were forged specifically for this monument, the largest and most prominent being a 30" bell which was forged by the Marinelli foundry which has been forging Papal bells for nearly 1000 years now. Nicholas' name is on this bell, as well as the 7 people who received the transplants and Pope John Paul II blessed the bell before it was shipped to California.

This just absolutely blew me away when I saw it. The bells sing when the wind blows and you can hear them from the parking lot on a nice quiet day with the nice summer breeze blowing. This is a very powerful monument, it's amazing that one act of selfishness cowardice on the robbers part could lead to a moving experience for an entire country if not the whole world. So my question is this, who are the heroes?