Other Make a Difference Day celebs:
Writer Anchee Min on the value of education
Wally Lamb brings the expressiveness of writing to prison inmates
Bestselling author Matthew Klam is enriched by a handicapped child
Robert Putnam, writer of Bowling Alone, is optimistic toward youth
Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie, finds his late teacher's words live on.
Arthur author Marc Brown believes where kids read, kids help others
Christopher Paul Curtis, author of Bud, Not Buddy, hails a hero he overlooked -- his dad.
Marc Parent, Turning Stones author, makes a difference to a dying woman's cat.
Ana Castillo, poet and author, tells how a gathering replenishes women who make a difference.
Justin Timberlake makes a difference through music

Twice rescued

The best-selling author, whose latest medical thriller is The Last Precinct, recalls what one woman -- a world-renowned evangelist -- did for a scared little girl and her family.

by Patricia Cornwell

THE CHRISTMAS of my ninth year, it had been snowing for three weeks in the mountains of North Carolina, where my mother was struggling alone to take care of two brothers, ages 6 and 10, and me. We had lived in the tiny town of Montreat only two years, and although my father did send alimony and child support, it wasn't much, and my mother was under tremendous pressure and constantly worried about paying bills. Finally, the stress, relentless weather and the holidays spiraled her downward into a black depression. For us, Christmas was the anniversary of when my father walked out on us in Miami. There was little money for presents. We were frightened and lonely.

Our car was stuck in the snow at the bottom of a hill, we ran out of heating oil and food, and in despair, my mother walked us three kids up the steep snowy road in front of our house, headed to the top of a ridge where Ruth and Billy Graham live. We did not know them. As providence would have it, the Grahams' caretaker was coming down the mountain in a Jeep, plowing the roads for the neighbors, and he stopped when he saw us, quite aware that there was something odd about this young woman walking her three children up the mountain.

"Where are you going?" he asked my mother.

"To see the Grahams."

He knew the Grahams were not expecting us and didn't know us, for that matter. But he piled us into the Jeep and drove us up to the top of the ridge, where the world-famous evangelist and his family lived. I can still feel the cold metal floor of the back of that orange Jeep and smell the spare tire as I wondered what in the world was going to happen to us. Then the house built of century-old split logs appeared from behind trees, smoke rising from the chimney, and Ruth appeared on the porch as if she had been waiting for us all her life, and we were welcomed and fed spaghetti. I remember Ruth was dressed in a long gray skirt, a shawl wrapped around her, and was struck by her beauty and incredible warmth.

She took these complete strangers into her living room, where a huge fire burned on the hearth. My mother handed her a note that said she was giving Jim, John and me to the Grahams so we could be raised in their kingdom. Within hours, my mom was checked into a hospital, where she stayed for three or four months, and the Grahams, of course, could not keep us but went about finding a foster home. I wanted to stay with Ruth and was heartbroken as we drove away from that warm, loving home and found ourselves with strangers in a dark, stern environment with retired missionaries from Africa.

As I grew up in Montreat, I would see Ruth from time to time, and she was always very kind to me. But it wasn't until I was 19 and had dropped out of college that she and I became friends. At the time, I had a severe eating disorder, was depressed and believed I was utterly worthless. She began to bring me back to life by making me feel I must be special. Why else would someone like her bother with me, when millions of people around the world would have given anything for even a moment of her time? She encouraged my writing and told me I was talented. When I returned to college, she visited me, sent money and wrote to me. If any single person in this world made a difference in my life, she did.

As I look back on those painful but miraculous days, I am amazed by what has happened to me since. I am blessed, and it is my mission to make a difference in any way I can. But what I believe is most powerful is touching a single life instead of believing you are ineffective unless you heal the masses. If everyone would reach out to the hurting person right before his eyes, the world would change, because if you make a difference in even one life, you have changed that person's world, and in the process, your own.

Enlightenment. Justice. Do no harm. Leave the world better than you found it.

Photo by WAYNE CARBERRY for USA WEEKEND