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upworthy

Angie Aker

Canva

Standardized testing was not the best day at school for most of us.

When you're a kid, kind words from a caring adult can make such a lasting impression.

Schools can have so much at stake with their testing results, they often inadvertently transfer that pressure onto the students.

That's exactly what happened to Indiana third-grader Rylan as he was gearing up for something most kids dread: standardized testing week.

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A letter to my grandpa and other fathers of the fatherless.

Know that you simply cannot ever know how much you’re doing just by being around.

Being a mentor has incredible value to the mentee.

True
Fathers Everywhere

We almost bit it, right there on a Minnesota gravel road.

My grandpa had taken me out for a summer afternoon ride on his motorcycle, a Honda, and it had been a wonderful excursion of warm, sunny freedom. I enjoyed the wind rushing past me, how strangely heavy my head felt on top of my neck with the helmet around it, and feeling like one mass moving in unison: me, my grandpa, and the motorcycle.

I was 12, and I’d been going for motorcycle rides with him since I was little, at first in sidecars, and later on (I don’t remember the exact age), on the actual bike. It was always a little scary, but I’d beaten back thoughts of trepidation many times, and nothing bad had ever come of those rides.

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Heroes

Talk about a rush job: A heart surgery done in 19 minutes instead of hours saved his life.

You can almost hear the song "Under Pressure" as you read this story.

Max Morton was admitted to Vancouver General Hospital's emergency room with all the signs of a failing heart valve.

His blood pressure was crashing before his doctors' eyes, and he wasn't a good candidate for open-heart surgery. He'd previously had an artificial aortic valve put in, and it was failing. The signs of heart failure that usually cropped up over many days all started appearing within six hours.

He needed a valve replacement stat, but the mortality rate for patients who've previously had a valve surgery is 34%.

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