The Maverick Log

The story makes me cry and makes me happy … makes me cry for the little angel thats now resting in peace and makes me happy for there are still people with hearts not made of stone …

Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing – a movie.

Colby was diagnosed with vascular cancer on Dec. 23, 2005 after doctors found a tumor in her liver. At the time of her death, her stomach was about 94 inches around, swollen with fluids the cancer wouldn’t let her body properly digest. The rest of her body probably weighed about 45 pounds, family friend Carole Lynch said.

Colby had gone to Newport Elementary School and was known for making others laugh, family friend Terrell Orum said. Colby loved to dance, sing, swim and seemed to have a more mature understanding of the world than other children her age, Orum said.

On April 28, Colby went to see the Dream Works 3-D movie “Monsters Vs. Aliens” but was impressed by the previews to “Up.”

“It was from then on, she said, ‘I have to see that movie. It is so cool,’” Lynch said.

Two days later Colby’s health began to worsen. On June 4 her mother asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see “Up.” However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered, Lisa Curtin said.

By June 9, Colby could no longer be transported to a theater and her family feared she would die without having seen the movie.

At that point, Orum, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help.

Pixar has an automated telephone answering system, Orum said, and unless she had a name of a specific person she wanted to speak to, she could not get through. Orum guessed a name and the computer system transferred her to someone who could help, she said.

Pixar officials listened to Colby’s story and agreed to send someone to Colby’s house the next day with a DVD of “Up,” Orum recalled.

She immediately called Lisa Curtin, who told Colby.

“Do you think you can hang on?” Colby’s mother said.

“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” the girl replied.

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD. He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

Cool stuff, Pixar … you get 10/10 on this.

For the uninitiated; ‘Forrest Gump’ is the story of a mentally challenged man’s heroic journey through life. Despite his mental disability, he ended up on All American football team, won a congressional medal of honor, became world ping pong champion, made millions in business empires and unwittingly became an inspiration for many people who looked up to him for that one silver lining in their life.

He first appeared in our imaginations in 1986, had a multiple academy award winner movie made on him in 1994, and since then has captured attention of millions.

& All this despite an IQ of 75 … For those not into IQ way of intelligence, 75 is not even average … it’s way below average …

Holy divinity … all around us we see the brightest and sharpest people, with IQ’s in high 130’s, running a rat race, wasting away their life and searching for success that their IQ promised them in their childhood … & this man … he reached the pinnacle of success … not once, not twice … in every field he ventured into … whatever he became a part of, he left an indelible mark … & that with an IQ that’s below that of an average kid.

How … of course being a fictional character helps … but such superhuman achievements had more to them in addition to that curtain of fiction … What was the magic stick that Forrest had … If we look deeply, there were not one, not two but all together 5 magic sticks that made Forrest what he was …

“When I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry, I ate. When I had to go, you know, I went.” - Forrest Gump

This was the difference … between Forrest Gump the asylum dweller and Forrest Gump the national hero. He lacked the intelligence to focus on end results, but had an endless energy to focus on what he was doing … if he was running he was running, if he was catching shrimp, he was catching shrimp, if he was playing, he was playing …. He was not thinking about being on an All American team or making millions in business or becoming world champion … He was just doing it … without any worries … there were no hiccups that were powerful enough to hold him back … he put in his all … He just did what needed to be done … without a worry about what his efforts are gonna get him.

Everything in world takes its own time to manifest and most of things are not under our control … we should rather be worrying about our efforts which is what we control rather than having sleepless nights on what we don’t control.

………………..Do what you can do right and results would take care of themselves.

“Now you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows.” - Forrest Gump

“I know I’m not a smart man… “- Forrest Gump

First statement is sheer unadulterated confidence … that’s bold and being unafraid of anything … that portrays a sense of unparalleled self belief … but was he the bragger … the show off who just wanted to impress people … second statement breaks any doubts readers may have about him being one …

Here was a man … one of that rare breed … those immortal ones … the men who know their strengths and their weaknesses … and more importantly, are bogged down by neither … They know what they are good at and are super confident about it. They are ones who have made peace with their weaknesses. They are our proverbial super heroes and super villains.

These people are bound to leave an impression on life … of theirs and of others …

………………..Engage life … and engage it in your areas of strength … not in those of weakness…

“I gotta find BUBBA!” - Forrest Gump

A Friend is sympathy … a friend is empathy … a friend is cooperation … a friend is reciprocation … a friend is one who knows us … a friend is one who loves us … a friend is one who would break through thick and smile through thin for us …

Forrest might be a man of low intelligence but he was a man of a very high EQ … He had a few friends but he stood by them always … stood by them when they were happy… or when they were troubled … when they were living & when they were dead …

HE was completely selfless for his friends … and that selflessness got him loyalty … the unending, unflinching loyalty … one that paid him well and played a big role in him becoming the national hero.

We should be willing to put everything at stake for our true friends … they are our partners in life … it’s not money, not fame & not our skills … it’s loyalty of these special people that’s gonna see us through those times.

………………..We are all angels of only one wing … and can only fly by embracing each other

“And cause I was a gazillionaire, and I liked doing it so much, I cut that grass for free.” - Forrest Gump

Forrest gives us a very simple & off repeated idea - “Do what you love” … but unfortunately, doing what you love is complicated …

The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids. We all have been taught that work and fun are opposite. You have two states as a kid - one state where you are made to do some things, that’s work … and second state when you are free to do what you want, that’s play … Work was not play and play was not work … and that mindset still hampers us… A lot of us are caught in what has been designated for us and not in what we always wanted to do …

But all is not lost … our freedom from this rat race is dependent on 3 C’s - Choice, Courage and Change … Choose what you love & have the courage to make the change … That’s all …

So people … turn off your TV and radio … shut your computer down … think the answer to the ultimate question … and then take steps to do what you love … and I promise you would be happy ever after

………………..When work is play, play is work …

“Sometimes, I guess there just aren’t not enough rocks” - Forrest Gump

Forrest and Jenny visit Jenny’s now abandoned childhood home and she starts hurling rocks at it….cursing her abusive father….and then collapses into sobs. As Forrest goes to comfort her, his voiceover says “Sometimes, I guess there’s just not enough rocks”

Sometimes, just like Jenny’s, in our lives too, there is a situation so immense that there is no way to change what happened. Accept the pain and move forward while hoping the best. May be sometime in future, something would happen that would ease your pain.

Don’t try to go back to a negative past and paint it in different colors. Rather turn your present into a bright one, so that when it becomes past, which it is doing inexorably, we won’t have to sweat to erase it.

………………..The past is gone, the future uncertain, so stay in the moment

Before you close the page, imagine for a moment about Forrest’s life, & think where we can reach with the IQ we have, if we employ these little lessons in our life. Finally, leaving you all with a conversation between Forrest and Momma Gump …

Forrest Gump: What’s my destiny, Mama?

Momma Gump: You’re gonna have to figure that out for yourself, Forrest.

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