In the 13 years since she was nearly stabbed to death by a stranger, Heather Smith Callahan has returned pieces of the kindness extended to her as she recovered.
She volunteered in the crisis-hotline room at the Denver Center for Crime Victims. She worked for Bonfils Blood Center.
But until she accepted Oprah Winfrey’s “Pay It Forward Challenge” and raised money to cover dental surgery for a Denver woman shot in the face by her boyfriend Christmas Eve, the 41-year-old suburban Chicago mom never felt as if she had done quite enough.
“When you are given so much in life like I was, you want to give it in return,” Callahan says. “It feels good to help somebody.”
Callahan was in the audience Oct. 26 when the talk- show host handed out debit cards loaded with $1,000 and instructed everyone in the room to spend the money within a week any way they wished – but not on their own families.
Callahan instantly knew that she wanted her cash to go to the Denver Center for Crime Victims.
The private nonprofit agency helped Callahan navigate the difficult years that followed Thomas Luther’s savage attack outside her Washington Park home April 12, 1993. Pretending to look inside the hatchback of the car Callahan had advertised for sale, Luther stabbed her five times in the back and broke her neck.
Kathi Fanning, who was at the crime victims’ center when Callahan came there for help, knew exactly who would be most helped by the money: Martha Clark, who was shot in the face 11 months ago.
Clark was in need of cash to pay for dental surgery, but Fanning thought a meeting of the two women might help in a different way too.
“Heather could give her a chance to see that there is an outcome to this. There is healing,” Fanning says. “It takes some time, but really, you can get your life back again.”
Surgery can proceed
When they met Oct. 30, Callahan gave Clark $2,600 to pay for dental procedures that Medicaid will not cover.
The dental work will allow Clark to proceed with reconstructive facial surgery, although her first instinct was to give some of the money to her church.
“She’s just one of those people,” says Fanning, director of training and volunteer services at the Denver Center for Crime Victims. “Even though she’s in the middle of all this, she wants to give back.”
Clark was traveling out of state for a family funeral and could not be reached for this story.
Clark, 45, has many surgeries ahead to repair damage done when Thomas McBride, a man she had known for 26 years, shot her. He was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault in October, seven days before Clark and Callahan met.
“The surgeries will help rebuild her face, but she’s still in the middle of it,” Callahan says. “I was hoping that meeting her might help her a little bit. I’ve come a long way. It does take awhile, but good things can happen.
“If people saw my life, they would see that it’s full and wonderful,” she says. “I made a decision to live that night, and I know Martha did too. She willed it. She had to reach down to find something inside her to survive that night.”
To help cover Clark’s bills, Callahan solicited contributions from her friends and family. The gesture caught the producers’ eyes, and Callahan’s story will be retold on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” at 4 p.m. today on KCNC-Channel 4.
Other good deeds
Hers is among many pay-it- forward tales on the show, including the story of one person who spent their $1,000 on 500 Starbucks cards and handed them out to strangers. Another group picked a stranger doing her wash at a Laundromat and purchased a washer and dryer for her. One woman raised $71,000 to pay medical bills for a father of nine battling a brain tumor. Two others teamed to raise $200,000 for a homeless shelter in a week.
Although criminal justice has been served for both women – Callahan’s assailant is serving 50 years for attacking her and 48 years for the murder of a Golden woman – Clark’s healing has only begun.
Fanning says she feels optimistic about Clark’s future.
“Heather has gotten to a good place, and I think it will be the same for Martha,” she says. “There will be good days and bad, but she’ll get there. She’s the kind of person that even though all this happened to her, she still wakes up every day, trying to help daughters and loving her grandkids. She’s making it on a day-to-day basis.”
And for folks like Callahan and Clark, giving back is an important leg in the long journey to reclaim their lives.
“In the end, it’s not about the amount,” Callahan says, “but what it feels like to give.”
Staff writer Dana Coffield can be reached at 303-954-1954 or dcoffield@denverpost.com.
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