Not all heroes wear capes. Many come in the form of ordinary people with a heart of gold who are brave enough to step in for someone in need.
The story of one gas station worker’s heroic act went viral some time ago and people couldn’t help but praise his bravery. Manveer Komer was doing his job when he noticed a man and a woman trying to withdraw cash from the ATM at the gas station where he worked. The woman was in distress and Komer knew something wasn’t right.
When they failed to get the money from the machine, the man and the woman entered the place and came to the front desk. The man then tried to buy cigarettes with the woman’s credit card while she was looking at him with fear.
Komer approached the woman and told her to stay inside the store while he got outside to confront the man who turned out to be an abductor. “You come stand behind my back,” Komer told the woman, as per ABC News. “I’ll help you, no problem.”
As it turned out, the man carjacked the woman’s vehicle and drove her around in an attempt to steal her money.
When Komer confronted him, he pretended to have a gun in his pocket, but once he realized Komer would stop at nothing to help the trembling woman, the kidnapper jumped into the car and sped off. Luckily, authorities managed catch him by tracking down the signal from the woman’s phone which the kidnapper was using.
The entire incident was caught on camera and later shared online by news stations and news outlets.
“Manveer Komer, I hope you see all the wonderful comments about you on this thread. What you did is beyond commendable. Thank you for not turning a blind eye, and thank you for helping a woman you did not even know. You are one in a million, Mr. Komer,” one person wrote about this clerk’s bravery.
“Thank you for paying attention and stepping up to save this lady. I don’t know how you knew but I’m glad you where there,” another person added.
You can watch the shocking surveillance tape footage below.
A teacher is usually the second most important adult in a child’s life.
Nancy Bleur is a lovely and caring 54-year-old kindergarten teacher from Iowa. She absolutely adores her students and goes out of her way to make them happy.
One day she noticed that 4-year-old Camden in her class wasn’t his usual self. She decided to have a little chat with him to see what was up. That’s when the boy started telling her about his father… and it made her heart sink. She felt like she had to do something – and fast.
Turns out Camden’s father, 34-year-old Darreld Petersen, was very sick. When Nancy realised just how bad, it made her even more worried as she couldn’t bare the thought of how it was affecting little Camden. That’s when she decided to call the dad up.
There was something seriously wrong with Darreld’s kidneys that made them function at just 20 percent of their capacity. During his dialysis treatment, he looked so sick that poor Camden was terrified when he saw his daddy.
Nancy decided she wanted to help the family in any way she could. You might think she offered to babysit, help with the groceries, cook or any other daily chore – but Nancy went much further than that in lending her hand.
Facebook/Nancy Bleuer
She offered Darreld one of her kidneys.
Miraculously, she happened to be a perfect match, meaning all she had to do was to quickly fill in some paper work.
“I was really excited about it. I was ecstatic. I don’t know what I would’ve done for closure if I wasn’t [a match],” she says.
Camden’s dad was shocked and delighted with Nancy’s extraordinary offer. She would be saving his life.
“It’s just amazing. There are people waiting every day for a kidney, for an organ in general. I wish there were more people like her. She’s giving me a second chance at life,” Darreld told ABC News.
Facebook/Nancy Bleuer
When the family found out that Nancy’s kidney was a match with Darreld’s, they decided to surprise her with flowers at school. Camden couldn’t be happier about the fact that his teacher is helping save his father’s life.
The world is full of good people! If everyone were as selfless as Nancy, the world would be a better place. Now let’s hope that the operation runs smoothly and that they both have a speedy recoveryPlease share this article if you were also touched by Nancy’s lovely gift to Camden’s dad.
Peace and Love
Bored Daddy
Life can be hard at times, and things get challenging, and the only thing we can do is fight our battles and hope for a better future.
Things are even harder for those with disabilities because people can be cruel and instead of offering acceptance, they see those individuals as different.
Alison Lapper was born without limbs and doctors were certain she wouldn’t make it too far, but she proved everyone wrong. However, Alison had a rough childhood and was taken away from her mother when she was just few weeks old because as they claimed, the state would take better care of her.
At the place where she grew up, Alison and those who were disabled in one way or another were referred to as “strange little creatures.” However, no matter how hard thing got, she thrived.
Alison even became an accomplished artist and made incredibly beautiful paintings using her mouth.
This brave woman who never gave up fighting for a better life had one wish. She wanted to become a mother, but that represented a difficulty too. Unfortunately, she experienced several miscarriages when she was young.
“I had been pregnant in my 20s, had miscarried four times and had always assumed that becoming a mother was not a possibility for me. But when I became pregnant again in April 1999 I knew I wasn’t going to miscarry. I was very fit and healthy and everything in my body and brain felt right,” she told The Guardian.
Alison got the attention of the public after she posed naked for a statue when eight months pregnant. That Marc Quinn statue stood in Trafalgar Square for two years, according to the Independent.
Shortly before she was supposed to give birth, Alison’s partner left her. She was all by herself but she knew she would be a great mother. Then, her son Parys was born. “He was healthy, he was cute, he was a blessed miracle,” she said.
“When I saw him, I just cried and cried,” she said, as quoted by Mail Online. “The emotions I felt were indescribable. I had never imagined I was going to be a mother, never thought it could be possible. But when they placed him on my shoulder and I gave him a little kiss on his head and said ‘hello’, I was overwhelmed.”
When her son was five years old, this single mother said, “My disability hasn’t ever created a barrier between us, but if the children at school tease him or make negative comments about his mother he may find it hard to deal with.
“…we’ve been through a lot together. I am the only person who has been constantly in his life since he was born.”
Parys was often severely bullied because of his mother’s looks, and that affected him deeply.
When he turned 19, Parys died due to a supposed overdose. Alison’s heart was shattered into a million pieces, Her “greatest piece of artwork,” as she called him, was now gone.
“Alison Lapper spent eight hours beside him, crying, hugging him and kissing his hair,” The Times quoted.
We are deeply saddened by this loss. Alison was an awesome mother and her son was snitched from her because of bullying. May he rest in peace.
When little bundles of joy are welcomed into the world, they become the center of their parents’ lives and everything revolves around them from that moment on. Moms and dads out there put their personal needs on the bottom of the list of priorities as their children’s needs become their number one concern.
Unfortunately, sometimes, no matter how hard they try, parents are powerless to help their children. Tragedies struck and their world bursts into pieces, like a shattered glass. The pain of losing a child never fades away and things don’t get easier as time passes by, they just learn how to live with their grief.
Jessica Brandes is an Oregon-based naturopathic doctor who has a heartbreaking story to share. She’s a mom of twins, Oliver and Wiley. Unfortunately, Wiley died in his sleep in 2019 as a result of what his parents believe to be SUDEP (Sudden Unexplained Death of Epilepsy).
The heartbroken mother shared her story on her LinkedIn account in hopes of making other parents realize just how important it is to make their children number one priority in life and spend most of their time by their side.
Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes
“I am a mother to 8-year-old twin boys, Oliver and Wiley. I am bound to this identity the same as I am wife, doctor, daughter, female. Things that are unchangeable in my mind.
Our son, Wiley, recently died. Our culture is trained to give people space around an event like this. It’s considered rude to ask what happened and why and so the only words left are ‘I’m so sorry.’ We are grieving intensely, but one of the best things we can do is share our story with you. If you can handle it, please ask us about our son’s life and his death. We heal in small bits while talking about it. If you haven’t had a chance to meet with us in person, then read his story here,” Jessica started her post.
“In general, he was happy and healthy and had been to his pediatrician, eye doctor and dentist all within one month of his death. He was smart, artistic, ambitious and funny, an incredible dancer, excellent taste in music and movies. He had the most gorgeous blue eyes; was tall with huge feet and seemed to be outgrowing everything within 2 weeks. He was mature and understood complex world concepts like religions and different forms of politics. He had been to 10 countries and had lived in London for 18 months of his life. He had driven a car and kissed girls and fell in love with one. He never knew heartbreak and while we will forever know that pain, I think it’s incredible that he loved and never experienced the pain of romantic rejection,” the heartbroken mother continued.
Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes
Jessica then described a situation when she learned her son had some health issues. During a trip, he was asleep, and suddenly fell down experiencing a seizure.
She and her husband took him to the doctor who ordered an EEG. After they ran a number of tests, Wiley was diagnosed with Rolandic Epilepsy. The good thing was that his condition would be outgrown over time. He wasn’t given any medications and the only thing Jessica and her husband were advised to do was to keep his quantity of sleep as regular as possible as his condition was triggered by his sleeping cycles.
Family and friends were alerted of Wiley’s condition and they all knew what to do in case of a seizure.
Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes
“9 months later, Wiley seemed to be sleeping quite late. I looked in on him and saw a peacefully sleeping child cozy in his bed after a long day of summer fun. He was not sick. There was no indication he was even slightly unwell. He went to bed tired and happy, well-fed having eaten his favorite meal and was sleeping next to his best friend,” Jessica wrote.
In the morning, when she realized Wiley had been sleeping for too long already, she went to check on him. Oliver was playing on his iPad while Wiley “was under a blanket and his feet appeared mottled.”
“That was the moment. The moment I knew what was coming next. My eyes tracked up his legs as I pulled the blanket back and I traced the deep purple color of lividity. This extreme color change indicated to me my son had been dead for at least 8 hours. I felt for a pulse and somehow felt surprised by the cold skin I touched. There was no emergency, no opportunity for intervention where I could have changed the outcome. He was gone and I knew events would move very quickly. I started to call 911, but hung up because there was a more important call I needed to make.”
Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes
Jessica called her husband J.R. and said the words: “Wiley’s dead.” In the next moment, she told Oliver that his friend was dead and people gathered in the house, after which the sirens followed.
First responders arrived with their equipment, but Jessica knew there was nothing to be done.
Because Wiley was a minor, police arrived and blocked the path to his room. When Jessica’s husband arrived home, he wasn’t allowed to enter and see his son. It took 2.5 hours for the police to investigate the place.
“J.R. walked our son out of the house with the Medical Examiner and then one by one, the cars all drove away just as quickly as they had arrived leaving J.R., Oliver and I standing in our driveway in a completely different world then the one we had woken up to,” Jessica wrote.
“If you think of brains as being the computers of the body, Wiley’s just turned off. No known trigger, no warning. It just shut down and without a brain, there is nothing. Wiley’s cause of death will take approximately 4 months to officially declare. There is no proof of SUDEP and so everything else even remotely possible must be ruled out. I take solace in the fact that it was peaceful. Wiley was warm and happy and asleep in his favorite place next to someone who loved him. If I were to design my own death, it would be exactly that.”
Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes
The family of four is now learning how to be a family of three, and that’s heartbreaking. However, Jessica says their family and friends shouldn’t be afraid of mentioning Wiley whenever they want.
“If we’ve learned anything at all, it’s that life is fragile, and time really can be so cruelly short. We wish a lot of things were different, but mostly, we wish we’d had more time. If you are a parent and have any capacity to spend more time with your kids, do. When it ends, there’s just photos and leftover things and time is no longer available to you. It is priceless and should not be squandered. Take your vacation days and sabbaticals and go be with them. You will not regret the emails you forgot to send. From now on, if you email or text me and my reply takes longer than expected, know that I am with the people I love sharing my time, creating my new identity, and I encourage you to do the same,” this brave mom ended her touching post.
Malcolm in the Middle was quite a show. It brought so much laughter to so many people that we can’t help but feel nostalgic when thinking about it. It first premiered some 21 years ago, and each of the 151 episodes had been watched by an average of 15 million people. Well, these numbers don’t come as a surprise knowing how fun the show was.
It revolved around 14-year-old Malcolm, the third of four boys in the family. Malcolm was the smartest person in the house, with an IQ of 165, but he wasn’t quite understood by the rest of the members of his family.
The creator behind the show was Linwood Boomer, who said he got the inspiration from his personal life. “I was in the middle,” Boomer told the Los Angeles Times. “We were rotten kids. After my mom saw the pilot her main comment was, ‘I’m not going to tell you [what] your IQ was, but it sure heck wasn’t 165.’”
The idea of making the series wasn’t embraced with arms wide open by people at Fox, but Fox president Doug Herzog really loved it. He thought it had potential because it was unlike any other show airing at the time. He not only decided to give it a go, but spent huge amounts on money promoting it. It turned out his gut about how successful Malcolm in the Middle could be was on point.
Source: Youtube/Tvoldy23
The show helped many members of the cast make a name for themselves. And that included not only young Frankie Muniz, who played Malcolm, but also Bryan Cranston who played Malcolm’s father Hal, Christopher Masterson in the role of the eldest brother Francis, Jane Frances Kaczmarek as Lois, and Erik Per Sullivan as Dewey.
Malcolm in the Middle received seven Golden Globe nominations and 33 Emmy nominations, winning seven of them.
Source: Youtube/BeforeTheyWereFamous
After the show was over, some of the actors went on to other film projects and others decided to try themselves in different professions.
Actor Eric Per Sullivan was just 9 years old when the series started. He starred in each of the episodes and often times stole the show with his incredible acting. Today, he’s trying to lead a normal life and tends to stay out of the spotlight.
Among the rest, after the series was over, Eric starred in the 2002 film Unfaithful and Christmas With the Kranks. He also worked as a voice actor on Finding Nemo and Arthur and the Invisibles. After that, he didn’t do any acting, according to IMBD.
Eric studied at Mount Saint Charles Academy in Rhode Island, but later transferred to the Phillips Exeter Academy. He studied at the University of Southern California (USC) between 2009 and 2010.
Thinking of his role as Dewey and looking at photos of him from recent years, we can agree that Eric looks totally different today. He’s all grown up but he didn’t lost his charm we all loved him for.
Being kind is the best policy. It is because of people who are willing to go an extra mile for the well-being of others that this world is a better place.
A photo from the Florida State University football game which took place in November of last years has gone viral for all the right reasons.
A woman named Britney Howard was a spectator at the game. She was hoping to have some enjoyable time, but ended up getting even more than just a fun day at the game. At one moment, Howard noticed an incredible sight. A young woman was having troubles climbing the steps and finding her seat, but an angel in the form of an officer stepped in.
Deputy C. Hall approached the girl’s mother and asked if it was okay for him to carry her daughter to her seat.
“I just wanted to take a minute and recognize Deputy C. Hall that was working the Florida State football game Saturday night. This young girl that has difficulty walking was struggling to get up the steps to her seat so he asked her and her mother if they would be okay with him carrying her. He walked at least 30 rows up to her seat and did not hesitate one bit in offering to do so,” Howard wrote along with the photo she shared on Facebook.
The Leon County Sheriff’s Office was proud of the deputy’s kind deed and praised his action.
Thank you, Deputy C. Hall. People like you restore our faith in humanity.
Not many people get to live to be 100, but Nat Ross, an Auschwitz survivor, is one the few lucky ones.
This brave man celebrated his milestone birthday surrounded by those who mean the world to him; his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Ross has been through so much in his life. When he was around 20 years old, the German Nazis took him to a concentration camp as he was one of the many Polish Jews the Nazis launched a campaign of terror against following the German military defeat of Poland in September 1939. Those were days filled with horror, but one particular incident has hunted Ross his entire life.
Fox 10 News/ Facebook
He was ordered to build a sewer system. While working on it, he came across some potato scraps which he tried to hide and eat in order to survive, but then the Nazis caught him stealing the scraps and punished him in the worst possible way.
Ross’ granddaughter, Dana Arschin-Kraslow, went into details of this awful and scary event and explained: “Every few weeks the Germans forced the prisoners to throw their clothes into a pot of boiling water to disinfect the clothing they were wearing, and my grandfather found a way to throw in a few scraps of rotten potatoes that he found. He sewed it into his uniform and that’s how he got nourishment.”
Fox 10 News/ Facebook
After realizing what Ross did, they forced him to dig his own grave.
“When he was almost done digging, they asked him to lay down on the ground to see if his body fit,” Dana told Fox 10 Phoenix. “When he did, the guards told him to keep digging. And there was a gun to his head this whole time.”
As he was kept at gun point, a prisoner collapsed. One of the Nazis turned to the man, killed him, and told Ross: “isn’t today, your lucky day.”
“That grave was 100 percent intended for my grandfather, but the rest of his life he had to live with that guilt that it ended up being for someone else,” Diana added.
Speaking to Fox 10 Phoenix, Ross said that he witnessed few prisoners taking their own lives because of the horrors they suffered, but he had a strong will to continue living. “I wanted to live because I wanted to tell the story,” he said. “Of how humans can suffer. I wanted to live through it.”
Luckily, all that is far behind him. After he was released from the concentration camp, Ross has lived a happy life. He lived in New York for many years before he moved to Florida where he worked and resides even today.
“Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring – quite often the hard way.” – Pamela Dugdale.
There’s no bigger blessing in life than having a brother or a sister you can lean on whenever things get hard. What makes siblings special is that we get to share with them out happiness and our sadness, but most of all our childhood, the most special period of everyone’s life.
Brianna and Carlos Colon are twins from Massachusetts. What is special about these two is that they were welcomed into the world at 24 weeks, weighing a pound and a half each. While this didn’t affect Brianna in any way, it caused health issues to Carlos who was left blind. At the same time Carlos has autism, but that didn’t prevent him from fulfilling his dream of graduating from high school.
Brianna on the other hand, graduated a year earlier and is now attending Bryant College.
She has always been very supportive of her brother, and she proved that once again on his prom night. As it turned out, Carlos didn’t have a date and was likely to miss the most important night of his life. Brianna, whose prom was canceled because of the pandemic last year, offered to be Carlos’ date.
“I’m lucky to have experienced it this time with him and somebody that I love very much,” she told Boston 25 News.
Needless to say, Carlos was over the moon and had the time of his life.
“Just because he’s blind and autistic doesn’t mean he can’t have fun. I’m glad he got to experience it and he danced a lot, so I’m really glad he went and all that,” his loving sister said.
It’s truly amazing to see how much Carlos has accomplished. He thrives and has a fulfilling life because he’s surrounded with special people who are there for him every step of the way.
However, although he graduated from high school, he’ll stay at the school until he’s 22 to be part of the Life Skills Program. His dream is to attend the Perkins School For The Blind. With the help and the support from his loved ones, especially his twin sister, Carlos will certainly accomplish everything he sets his mind to.
