Two Bens

We were watching Cuba Gooding Jr. in a movie at the weekend and it reminded me of a new movie he’s in which then got me thinking about whether we’d ever mentioned one of the stories that inspired Ben from an early age.

When Ben was eight or nine I guess, he discovered a book called “Gifted Hands”. An autobiography written by an Afro-American called Ben Carson. It is a story of a boy with a strong belief in God, who has a dream. Despite difficult circumstances, his determination, perseverance and hope motivate him to pursue this dream and he eventually becomes a paediatric neuro-surgeon at Johns Hopkins University.

A young Ben Mulherin was looking for Christian heroes and was encouraged and inspired by this man’s faith and his ‘never give in’ gutsy approach to life’s challenges. He read the two books by Ben Carson several times as he was growing up and when we returned with all our books from Argentina in 2006, he was disappointed to find that “Gifted Hands” had gone missing.

He ordered a new copy for himself and read it again shortly before he became sick in June 2008. Ben Carson’s contribution to paediatric nuerosurgery and the stories of lives saved and changed in his books played a part at least, I believe, in Ben Mulherin deciding to study medicine.

So back to the first paragraph of this blog: Ben Carson’s story has recently been made into a movie called, not surprisingly “Gifted Hands” and Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Ben Carson. The movie is very interesting; worth a look.

Lindy

Patagonia adventures – Day 1

Recently we dug out the family diary of our 3 week trip to Patagonia, southern Argentina, in 2005. The seven of us in our van for 10,000km. During the trip we passed the portable computer around so everyone could contribute to the electronic journal. Tim started the ball rolling on Day 1 then Ben's distinctive style shines through as he takes over. We had been on the road an hour and a half:

Tim:

Dad started driving and almost rear ended a car after 1km. Andy was grumpy when we left but promptly got over it when he was sat between Ben and Tim who challenged him on the difficulty of maintaining the facial expression he was sporting.

Km 50: Matt makes an attempt to sing "Barbie Girl" (who did he learn that from?) with not much success with the lyrics or the tune. After 10 minutes of  "It's a Barbie girl, it's a Barbie girl" most of us were looking fwd to the next song.

Ben:

Just got through Santiago without a problem. Matt's slapping Pete on the back and singing “a kid’ll eat ivy too” better than Barbie girl. Pete now wants a seat change, but Tim and I won’t oblige, and grumps is confined to the back seat until an hour after lunch. “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?” Now it’s “duba do duba dup” from Tarzan. With little ‘whoops’ in between. Sounds like a video game soundtrack.

Andy’s reading over my shoulder with all critical powers turned on. Pete's got his finger in his mouth and is leaning as far away from Matt as he can and looking out the front. Mum’s knitting something. Dad’s driving. Tim’s not doing anything.

“Matt's getting a lot of dirty looks and it should be out in the open” says grandpa Tim in a voice no one can hear. “I don’t really get excited by the middle seats” says Tim. Pete tries to convince people that he’s “tired and wants to go to sleep”, however the real reason is suspected to be that he would prefer his front seat points at some later stage, plus is sick of Matt, and also passing dirty yogurt spoons and yogurt containers forward to Mum, who puts them somewhere.

Some alarm just went off, which means that Matt gets to choose a CD. He’s chosen Narnia, all 31 hours of it.

Just had a series of ‘humpies’ on the road. Dad got excited by it, and said ‘huumpie!’ on each one, and tried to get the car to bounce higher by pulling up on the steering wheel

Dodged some billie goats on the road. Weather is darkish and grey. Road is semi dry.

Andy just got another half an hour in the back seat cos dad asked about the toolbox, and I said “I don’t know”. He now has his death mask on. We now enter a discussion on the basic toolbox and its components. I propose 2 adjustable spanners, vice grips, two screweys. Dad wants WD40 for Mum’s seat. Andy’s being encouraged by Tim who says that he should get the back seat moulded to his ashole, and Mum says “Don’t give up hope mate.”

"What are you writing Ben?!" says Tim. “His feelings” says Andy. Haha.

Listened to Narnia for about 20 minutes, and then Mum decided that a little town was interesting enough to turn it off. She pressed stop, so we have to start it from the start. T’is going to be a long 31 hours, as it will have to be uninterrupted if Mum can’t find the pause button.

And so we drove on, only 9900km to go...

Many thanks...

After receiving donations at Ben's birthday party last Saturday, we wrote a cheque for $1000 for research into bone marrow transplantion. It will go to a research team headed by Ben's specialist. A bone marrow transplant is the only hope for people with certain kinds of cancer. Unfortunately Ben did not stay around long enough to have a bone marrow transplant.