Project Rebirth by Dr. Robin Stern

the region. The rain was not heavy, and yet when he went outside, Charles could feel the wet up to his knees. Water pooled quickly in these parts, and he now understood why he saw so many boats caught on tree branches.
    Charles had some experience driving large vehicles, as well as operating heavy machinery during his army service, so he was assigned to Emergency Response Vehicle duty. When that didn’t work out, he was put in charge of a cargo truck. During the nineties he owned his own van service and provided transportation for performers such as Diana Ross, Jackson Browne, and U2. If Bono could see me now, Charles thought.
    Charles liked the cargo truck because he could disburse large amounts of food and supplies quickly to as many people as possible. The instructions were clear in terms of what he had to do, yet vague about where he had to do it. He was told to pick an area he wanted to service, drive around to find people in need, then pick up the necessary supplies and deliver them. Repeat. Charles found himself making several trips a day to the warehouse and back out east along the coast, sometimes crossing over to Alabama, where he was originally supposed to be stationed.
    One day, as he drove back to the warehouse from a delivery far along Route 9, a woman flagged him down. She had a baby in her arms, pale and puffy like a marshmallow. Charles got out of the cargo truck and asked how he could help. She asked him to come over to her house.
    The woman showed Charles that she had no supplies left in the house, not even Similac for the baby. “I don’t have much in this truck right now,” Charles explained, then added in the most reassuring tone he could muster, “but what I have, I’ll give you. Now, you tell all your neighbors who have babies or who need anything else to come meet me here tomorrow at the same time.”
    The grief in their faces was unbearable. Mothers being unable to care for their babies really got to him. The scene there was worse than 9/11, for him, at least. There was nothing but devastation everywhere he went. Not even the rich had been spared. As he got back on the road toward the warehouse, Charles saw the remnants of a huge estate. Trees were all gone, the fence had been ripped out and lay near a body of water, and there were no houses in sight.
    The next day, Charles kept his promise to the woman with the baby, and the woman had brought many of her neighbors with her, all in dire need. Charles gave them all formula and teddy bears. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life,” Charles says with a proud smirk, “but nothing better than that . . . that was my shining hour.”
    When asked about what Tana would have thought of his volunteer work, Charles says, “She would’ve expected it.”
    Grandmother and grandson would often go out fishing in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. In fact, it was a tradition they continued well into her old age, bringing Charles’s daughter along as well. Tana was great at it. Whatever they caught on a given day, she brought back home in the evening to distribute to the neighbors. Charles, however, took note of what Tana did when no fish had made it onto their boat. On their way back to Manhattan, she would stop by the market and buy fish.
    â€œNow, don’t go telling anyone about this,” she’d warn Charles before handing out the fish in the neighborhood. Tana was as proud as she was generous.
    Helping others would become a form of healing for Charles. Psychologist Lorne Ladner, Ph.D., asserts that taking care of others is a way of taking care of ourselves. He says, “By developing deep, powerful feelings of compassionate connection with others, we can learn to live meaningful and joyful lives. Only such feelings can help us to learn experientially how to work for meaningful causes and give of ourselves without becoming exhausted or burned out.”
    Charles would certainly agree. As he shrugs