After some time, friends became more distant, family's visits began to lessen, and lovers were out of the question. She was a woman alone, in a prison made of four walls with her only companion being the chair. Life was not good. At one point, someone had brought her one of those new electromechanical devices known throughout the world as a computer. According to everyone, it offered answers to all questions and solutions to all problems. Even then, she saw it as just one more mechanical beast, another machine to share her prison cell with. For over a year, she never turned it on and it just sat there, the screen staring out at her like a window into midnight.

What finally got to her was the loneliness and lack of purpose in her life. When she was healthy she took things for granted. Some of those things were the ability to walk, to be able to go anywhere she wanted, to work, to play, and to have a family if she chose. Now, she had little contact with family, few friends, and no hope of improving. The worst part was the boredom. How could someone just sit? Oh, sure, she had tried TV, books and the radio, but all of them seemed so pointless after a while. What did they have to offer, other than a temporary distraction from the fact that she was alone and had no purpose in her life? She had even tried going back out and joining the very same society that alienated her with their knowing looks, but found that she could not handle the looks, or the averted eyes. She became a loner, a hermit of sorts in a prison she called home. It was the loneliness and lack of purpose that finally made her decide to acquaint herself with the mechanical beast, her computer.

She sat down with the techno-graphic instruction booklets that maybe a seven-year-old could understand, but which to an adult was a prelude to half a bottle of aspirin and a cold compress. Despite the techno-wizardry, despite her fear that she might never learn, she slowly gained enough confidence to hit the big red button, the one that said "ON." It was slow-going as she had to learn to walk before she could run, at least that's how she thought of it metaphorically in her mind. It's truly amazing when you lose something, how much you realize you took it for granted and find yourself thinking about it after the fact. She taught herself how to use the computer even when she wasn't sure why she wanted to learn. It couldn't do anything for her as far as she could tell. What did she need? Three meals a day and some oil to lubricate the bearings of her companion, the chair, as far as she was concerned. When it came right down to it, she knew the only reason she was teaching herself the computer was out of boredom. There simply was nothing else for her to do.

After a few weeks, she had learned to surf the net, to make all kinds of funny sounds and images, to visit places outside of her home. She was a voyeur of the twenty-first century visiting places and people around the world. She had found something on the computer after all, something she was certain she would never find again. There were people, not just people, but friends. Friends, who did not treat her as though she was different, like some kind of leper. The people she met on the computer were good and caring and friendly. Few of them knew she was in the chair, and few cared. They treated her just like they would treat everyone else. After all, every computer user in the world has to sit in a chair to use the computer, so everyone was on the same emotional level.

Despite having found friends, despite having learned some interesting technical skills, something was still missing from her life. She wasn't sure what it was, but the closest word she could think of was "purpose". Her life had no purpose, no meaning, and no reason for being. She needed something, but that "something" was what she needed to figure out. It had to be something to really care about and live for and, until she found it, her life would be empty. She would spend each day asking herself if she should just end it. Should she make today her last day on earth? Was this the right time to end her suffering, to stop being a burden on others? Should she simply lay down and die?

Then one day, she found what she needed, she found someone to help, someone who needed her. Suddenly, she had found something that gave her life purpose and meaning. Of course, it didn't happen right away. Well, maybe it did, but it took a while to sink in, for her to understand that in less than a second her whole life had changed, and that she now had a purpose in life, because someone needed her.

What had happened to change her life in an instant? What had filled her heart with love? What had made her decide to live, and filled her life with purpose?

It was a picture of a little girl staring at her from the computer screen, with shining eyes and a great big smile. Captioned next to the little girl's mouth were three words. I Love You. Under her picture it said simply, "Will You Help Me?" Over the picture it said "Missing". She looked into the little shining eyes and saw the look of pure and innocent love. She looked at the little girl's smile and found herself smiling too. The "Missing" caption made her heart sink, but the minute she read the words, "Will you help me?" It helped her make up her mind that she was going to help this little girl. She was going to find her and bring her home.

Sometime after a dozen rings, she heard someone pick up the phone and drop it. After a few seconds a groggy voice spoke and asked who it was. She apologized for waking him, but said she was calling to help. He asked her how one person could possibly make a difference. She said, "For the rest of my life I will be confined to a wheelchair, but that doesn't mean I can't help. Instead, it simply means I will have to help in ways in which I am able to. There are twenty-four hours in a day, and since I only sleep eight of them, that means that I have sixteen hours a day in which I can do something to help. I have nothing else in my life, and so every waking hour I have is going to be devoted to helping bring yourdaughter home to you. And I promise you, I will never stop looking until she is home."

Something about this woman convinced the man that she meant what she said. They talked all night about his little girl and how the little girl would never know her mother, who had died giving birth to her. He told her how his little girl with the beautiful smile and the shiny eyes had been snatched from their backyard by a stranger, and that he knew that his little girl might be dead or alive. As the man and woman talked, he became convinced that if anyone could help find his daughter, it would be this woman on the phone, who lived in a chair on wheels, this angel who had awakened his dwindling faith in humanity.

While everyone else had given up looking, she began using the computer to post the little girl's picture all over the World Wide Web. When the media stopped running their stories, she wrote her own and sent them to the world via email. When people's memories of this little girl's disappearance began to fade, she printed flyers on her home computer and mailed them to anyone who would help. Each week she called the police and made sure they were on the job. Once a week she contacted the missing children's agencies to see if they had any good news. She talked to detectives, experts and witnesses, and every day, she made herself a promise that she would never give up hope.

Soon, this woman who was trapped in the chair became involved in helping other missing children and their parents. Word of this kind lady who would do anything to help a child began to spread. Parents of missing children from all over the country began to contact her for help, advice and a caring word. She lived through good times when a child had been found and sad times when another was lost. She became a friend to all the parents, listened when they talked, and shared a tear when they cried. She was there for all of those that needed her, and there were many that needed her indeed.

Over a period of time she had almost forgotten about the chair. It was just a tool. Later, she even began to think of her chair as a blessing. She realized that even before she was confined to the chair, she could walk, but her life had no purpose. She had been able to walk, but had nowhere to go. Even before she needed the chair, she had good strong legs but no reason for living. The chair that brought so much pain had also given her something new in her life, a purpose, a sense of being needed and a new reason to live. Maybe the chair had been a blessing in disguise all along.

As the years went by, she never gave up hope of finding that first little girl. She talked with the father by phone once a week and by letters or e-mail daily. He told her that as long as she kept looking, he would have hope that someday his little girl would be found.

Then three weeks ago, the e-mails and letters had stopped. No one answered his phone. She was worried. Had he given up hope? Had the worst happened? Was this man who had become part of her life gone forever? What had happened? Finally, she began to give up hope. That night she cried. She cried for the children. She cried for that one little girl, and for the man who had become her friend. As her tears fell, so did the rain. It turned out to be a sad lonely night, with water pouring, both inside and out. She felt she had lost her reason for living, the cure for her pain, as well as the little girl and her father. For this one brief moment, she cursed the chair and wished the pain would just end.

Just as her tears reached their peak, as she felt all her hope and reason for living going down the drain, there was a knock at the door. She turned her chair and looked out to see through her custom-made peephole to see who was outside. There stood a man who was soaking wet outside her door. She opened the door cautiously, and to her surprise, she recognized the man standing outside. She had seen his picture many times, the searching sad eyes, the lost puppy dog look, that sense of loss and despair on a face that would normally be filled with smiles and laughter. He was the father of the missing girl she had cried so many tears for. He was the one whom she had been helping and in doing so, she found true meaning in her own life.

What was he doing here? Why was he standing outside in the rain? What had made him travel thousands of miles to see a woman he had never met? He gave her a big wide smile, and said that he had good news to give her. He said that his daughter had been found, and as he said this, a young girl stepped forward. Tears began to flow around the room as all three of them joined in this moment of incredible joy. The woman in the wheelchair cried happy tears as she asked them both to come inside. She was practically bursting with joy as she asked how his daughter had been found, while silently wondering if it had anything to do with her search. He said that his daughter had escaped the kidnapper and found her way home on her own.

At this point, the father was thanking the woman in the chair over and over again, but she did not understand. She said, "But if your daughter escaped on her own, and came home on her own, why are you thanking me?" The father said, "The night you called, I wasn't asleep. I had given up hope and decided to end my life. That night you cared and gave me hope and the will to live. If not for you, my daughter would have come home to an empty house."

The woman in the chair cried many tears, teardrops that fell like an endless summer rain. Then the father said again, "My daughter and I have talked about a lot, especially about you. I told her all about what you did, how you cared, cried, and kept me from giving up. You fought to find her and bring her home, and so she asked me to bring her here. She has something she would like to ask you."

His daughter stepped forward, shyly at first, but her smile began to grow as she said, "Without you I would have no father to come home to. What you have done is the greatest act of love I have ever received in my life. To my father and others, you are a hero, but to me, you are something more." She hugged the lady in the chair and said, "You are a special lady and I would like you to be my mother." For once, the lady in the chair was at a loss for words. She wasn't sure if she understood right, and she tried to speak. But the little girl put her fingers to the woman's lips as she held out a ring to her father. The father took the ring and put it on the woman's finger and said, "My daughter and I have talked and we need one special thing to make us a family," and then he said, "Will you marry me?"

Before she knew it, she was being hugged and was hugging back. She was the happiest woman on the face of the earth. She had never been this happy in her whole life, and it was more than a few minutes before any of them realized that she had stood up to receive that first hug.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY