Sisters Camrey, 5, and Anaiah, 9, from a small town in Georgia, near Atlanta, each school day held hands and ran or skipped across the street to catch their school bus. On a rainy day in February, they were half way across the street before Anaiah saw a truck bearing down on them. Without thinking about her own safety, she pushed her little sister away from the truck but took the full impact herself, breaking her neck and both legs.

Her mother who had been watching from their house rushed over and found no pulse. The school bus driver arrived in time to revive her with CPR, but Anaiah lost a leg and a kidney and was hospitalized for a month.

Anaiah suffered through five surgeries, losing a leg and a kidney but she had saved her little sister’s life. After more than a month in the hospital, Anaiah returned home to a heroine’s welcome. Anaiah told an NBC Today Show’s Brian Williams  on March 23, 2011 that, “When it happened, I had just one thought; my little sister Camrey is too young to survive this. I love my sister more than anything.”

, which inspires us to do likewise. However, love and compassion can be expressed in much less demanding ways. Sitting listening to a lonely friend for 20 minutes might provide just the compassion that your friend needed. And he or she might be inspired to pass it on to someone else. Walking to the store to get food for a sick neighbor might seem trivial to you, but to the person suffering, it might be a huge and generous gift. Good deeds do not have to be large to count as love or compassion.