Andrew Swanson

I suppose I'm an ordinary man living a rather ordinary life, punctuated here and there with extraordinary moments.

I remember when I was five years old. I was walking along a beach near my home picking up interesting-looking rocks. I brought them home and asked my father about them. He told me about them, and I was fascinated by the fact that they all had names and that there were different types of rocks. It may seem strange, but at the age of five, I knew what I wanted to be someone who studied rocks...a geologist... when I grew up.

If I ever did grow up. Anyway, I grew to be someone who learned to appreciate all of God's creations: rocks, trees, frogs, birds and cats.

I learned a lot about love from a cat (not really from the cat, but he was in the middle of the lesson). When I was about seven years old, my cat Gordon stepped on the burner of an electric stove and burned his front paws very badly. The vet said that he would probably not live. My Mom told me that the only thing that we could do is to love Gordon. She taught me that love can cure things that nothing else could. We did love that cat and we let him know it by holding him and feeding him by hand as he lay in our arms. We had to feed him that way because he couldn't stand up and eat. In those days and weeks my mother taught me the most important lesson of my entire life: she taught me that no matter how badly we are hurt or burned, or how day to day life bends us to the ground, true demonstrated love can heal all wounds. And it's true. And it does. He does.