Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

I shared last week that in some ways this could be the month of the young, with all the awareness days for children in September. But that’s not all, it’s also the month for Alzheimer’s awareness. I think it’s appropriate because in a way, Alzheimer’s turns people back into children who need special care. I’m not sure if I’ve shared this or not, but my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. She came to live with us so we could care for her. I was still pretty young, but my sisters were in high school and one came to be her companion. She got some money from the government and like a child, the day it came in, they would go for candy. Sneaking through the woods and the apartment complex at the end of our neighborhood, they would walk to the local Tom Thumb and get penny and nickel candy. It was something we did as children whenever we got hold of some money and could get away. She left us and eventually went into a home to care for people with Alzheimer’s. Now I wish I had spent m...

I have written before about what it was like when my son had a malignant skin cancer at the age of five. Thankfully, God saved him for another purpose in life, but September is a month to think about children of all ages because it’s the month for childhood cancer, infant mortality, newborn screening, and childhood obesity awareness. I remember when he was just born and a nurse came into our room and took his foot and pierced it. She squeezed out his blood and his cries made me twinge in horror. What could be so important that the nurse had to do that to him? I found out later that pinprick could have made the difference in his life if he had one of the diseases that they test for at newborn screening. These tests are for diseases you don’t notice when you see a newborn baby, but they can prevent healthy development and lifelong impairment according to KidsHealth . There are no federal standards for this but most states screen for about 30 diseases. A friend of mine just ha...

Do you ever feel like there are too many issues out there for you to make a difference? Believe it or not, I’ve felt this way before, especially with my knowledge of all the things going on in the charity world. For instance, last week, there were three different things I wanted to talk about—National Literacy Day on the 8 th , September 11 as a day of service, and National Suicide Prevention Week. If you “tuned in” last week, you know I settled on the latter. Why? Simply because I’ve written about the other two and hadn’t written about the third one yet. I felt like it was time. On the tenth anniversary of September 11, I definitely focused on that and as a former English teacher, I’ve written about literacy throughout the year. The two other issues are important to me. I buy my books from Better World Books because I know they give books to people that need them and provide literacy programs throughout the world. I also made brownies and cookies for my local firefighters on...

My life is wonderful. I have a loving husband, a growing child, and a variety of activities taking care of them, helping others, and stretching my mind and abilities. Most importantly, I love God and know He loves me. This was not always the case. When I was in my twenties, I had a hard time finding a good job (the economic recession of that day was in effect), no boyfriend, and I struggled to make ends meet and enjoy my life. After being thrown out of my parent’s house, I moved from place to place and job to job (neither by choice) for over a year. On top of that, I had been in a car accident and had recurring pain with which I dealt. At one point, I was so depressed with the way my life was going, that I considered taking my life. What brought me back from the brink of such an action was that I felt some connection to my nephew (who was a young boy at the time), and I knew that everyone in my family would be negatively affected by my act. The memory of his sweet face and the ...