A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his parents from San Francisco. “Mom and Dad, I’m coming home, but I have a favor to ask. I have a friend I’d like to bring home with me. “Sure,” they replied, “we’d love to meet him.”
“There’s something you should know,” the son continued, “he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mind and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live.”
“No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us.”
“Son,” said the father, “you don’t know what you’re asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can’t let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He’ll find a way to live on his own.”
At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him. A few days later, however, they received a call from the San Francisco police. Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told. The police believed it was suicide.
The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son. They recognized him, but to their horror, they also discovered something they didn’t know, their son had only one arm and one leg.
Moral: The parents in this story are like many of us. We find it easy to love those who are good-looking or fun to have around, but we don’t like people who inconvenience us or make us feel uncomfortable. We would rather stay away from people who aren’t as healthy, beautiful, or smart as we are. Thankfully, there’s someone who won’t treat us that way. Someone who loves us with an unconditional love that welcomes us into the forever family, regardless of how messed up we are.
Tonight, before you tuck yourself in for the night, say a little prayer that God will give you the strength you need to accept people as they are, and to help us all be more understanding of those who are different from us!
March 17, 2021 at 11:59 pm
It is a good story
April 9, 2021 at 9:23 am
The soldier asked that to test how his parents will treat him after coming home. It was actually a sad story
April 11, 2021 at 6:52 pm
I can’t believe his parents would answer him like that. It was a really sad story
April 27, 2021 at 9:30 am
Was he the one who had the one leg or arm, or did he give one leg and arm to his friend that he was going to bring home and let him live a normal live and the son killed himself?
May 23, 2021 at 11:40 pm
So sad :(
August 1, 2021 at 6:11 am
Oh wow. That was a really sad twist at the end of the story.
:(
Who else is reading this in the covid pandamic 2021… :(
December 12, 2021 at 2:45 am
Nice story 👌👌
September 14, 2022 at 10:04 am
Marvelous
November 11, 2022 at 12:56 pm
Wow
July 17, 2024 at 3:07 am
I remember this story getting passed around in high school ‘68-72ish. I never forgot it because it was so tragic and sad.