Grace and optimism – lottery winners pay for a new leg

Kieran Maxwell is a 13 year old from Scotland who lost the lower half of one leg to Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, in October 2010. Kieran captured hearts when he fell but picked himself up carrying the Olympic torch in July 2012. His family had been saving and fundraising for a new prosthetic limb when Euromillions winners olin and Chris Weir offered to pay for the limb.

It’s a wonderful story of humanity and kindness and I would recommend you watch this brief news item video on the BBC’s site. Unfortunately I can’t embed it.

The generosity of the Weirs is touching – particularly when so many lottery players seem to say they would do good deeds with any winnings and so few seem to do so (that’s a little anecdotal and I don’t mean to belittle any who do follow up on this). There’s one thing on the video which caught my eye and ear though.

About 1:05 into the video they interview Kieran’s mum, Nicola, who is understandably astounded by the gift. She says:

> “It’s been surreal, like a dream. I keep waiting for someone to pinch us and wake us up. Things like this don’t happen to us. We do not get good luck – at all.”

At this point an off-camera voice – which I presume to be Kieran – interrupts and says “I do”.

Yes it would be better if the prosthetic wasn’t necessary but it is. Here’s the thing though – this story made the news and touches our hearts because of the generosity, humility, determination and optimism of those involved. Maybe that’s because we wish there were more occurrences of these things in the world. Then again perhaps we could let this story inspire us to make that so.