1. Wrongfully convicted man freed after nearly 3 decades in prison meets his longtime pen pal for the first time
Lamar Johnson served 28 years for a murder he didn’t commit—when he was finally released after years of work by an advocacy group, there was one person he knew he wanted to see first…It was a pen pal who wrote to him faithfully through nearly all the years of his imprisonment and came to all his court proceedings, pleading for his release on the strongly-held belief he was innocent.
2. 105-Year-old WWII Veteran With No Surviving Relatives Receives 3,000 Birthday Cards
A World War II veteran with no surviving relatives celebrated his 105th birthday with more than 3,000 cards from kind-hearted strangers. Ernest Horsfall, who has seen 27 Prime Ministers and five British monarchs in his lifetime, said he was ‘surprised and amazed’ at how many people wrote to him. He was showered with cards from generous well-wishers after the Royal British Legion called for the brave ex-servicemen to be honored for his landmark birthday.
3. Revolutionary Music Therapy Helps Paralyzed Man Walk and Talk Again – It ‘Unlocked the Brain’
A patient who was left almost completely paralyzed from a rare disease is now walking and talking again, after a music therapist prescribed mindful listening to his favorite song every night—in this case, a tune by The Carpenters.
71 year-old Ian Palmer was struck down with Guillain-Barré syndrome last June, forcing him to spend seven months in a hospital where he was unable to walk or speak properly. The rare condition happens when a person’s own immune system attacks their body’s motor nerves, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis.
