Every once in awhile there's a celebrity story that brings tears to your eyes ... in a good way. Take the way basketball great Magic Johnson has handled his son Earvin EJ Johnson III coming out as a gay man. Magic has been a class act.

Heck, after listening to him talk about how he first found out EJ was gay -- way back when he was a young teen -- I kind of wish the Lakers legend was my dad. Magic's eyes quite literally light up with love when he's talking about his son, and his explanation of how he and wife Cookie have helped their boy through the whole process is like a road map for parents of gay teens.

A lot of teenage girls stress about prom -- who they’ll go with, what they’ll wear, etc. Katelyn Norman’s only concern was getting to experience it at all. The 14-year-old Tennessee girl has been battling bone cancer for two years, and recently found out that treatments are no longer working. So she made a bucket list and added prom to it.

Thanks to some awesome people, Katelyn got her prom. Her family contacted the school district and they planned a dance the very same week. Unfortunately, she was rushed to the hospital for breathing difficulties. This sweet girl told her teachers “the prom must go on.”

I'm frankly impressed by any human being who makes the decision to climb a mountain -- any mountain. Down here on comparatively level ground, we have couches and showers and stuff, so to voluntarily hike up and away from such creature comforts is quite the undertaking, at least in my book. So to me, 15-year-old Eli Reimer's recent climb to the Base Camp of Mount Everest in Nepal is an incredible accomplishment, for several reasons: Not only is Eli a teen, but the Mount Everest Base Camp's elevation is just under 17,600 feet (yup, that's the "base"). Oh, and Eli has Down Syndrome.

Whenever I hear about a quick-thinking kid who manages to survive some horrible situation on sheer intuition, my reaction is always to say a little silent prayer for my kids to have those same life-saving instincts (should they, God forbid, ever find themselves in a similar spot). Even as adults, we never know how we'll react under pressure -- especially the kind of pressure a New Jersey teen found herself under when a 45-year-old woman put a gun to her head, forced her into a car, and told her to drive to Philadelphia, or else.

The teen (whose identity remains anonymous) did as she was told -- sort of. She drove the car, anyway.

My oldest is still in middle school, so I haven't yet asked either of my kids to take on a chore as challenging as cleaning the bathroom. But if the amount of nagging required to convince them to clean their rooms is any indication ... yeah, I'm not getting my hopes up insofar as a sparkling clean shower goes. Anyway, the point is, I can only imagine how desperate the situation can get. So I had to laugh at the online pic of a note one mom taped to the bathroom door for her (presumably lazy-ish) teen:

"Please clean this bathroom tonight. Clean it like the Queen of England is visiting. Clean tonight. Baseboards/mop/tub. Please. Please."

But what REALLY made me laugh were the pictures of how that mom found her bathroom the next day ...

Something to keep in mind when you or your kids get grouchy during the morning school rush: Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old girl who was shot by the Taliban last October because she advocated for girls education, headed back to school the other day. The hero carried a pink backpack.

Malala was only 14 when the Taliban shot her in the head -- at point blank range -- in her homeland of Pakistan. She spent months in the hospital, and her family relocated to the UK, where she’s now attending a private girl’s school. What did Malala, now a contender for a Nobel peace prize, have to say about getting back to her education?

Every once in a while a story comes around that truly inspires you. Tia Shephard's story is one of those. Unlike other 16-year-old girls, she spends her days in a hospital bed. Suffering from an undiagnosed degenerative disease, Tia has lost her balance, hearing, and just recently the ability to breathe on her own.

However -- instead of living her last days in tears Tia is checking things off her bucket list. This past Thursday, the teen got a puppy. The adorable pint-sized yorkie was donated to the family by the Kansas Humane Society. Then Saturday, Tia checked off getting baptized, as a local pastor came to her hospital bedside and her family participated in the touching ceremony.

It's amazing to see what the local community is willing to do to help this teen in her final days. What's even more awesome, though, is Tia's No. 1 item on her bucket list: To meet Taylor Swift.

Out of so many tragedies involving children come stories of unfathomable heroism and inspiration, and teen Madison Leigh Wallace's devastating drowning is no exception.

The 16-year-old's body was found Friday in an icy river in South Dakota's Falls Park, after she'd jumped in Thursday night to save her 6-year-old brother Garrett. Police think Garrett either slipped on rocks and fell in or was covered in the bubbling water's rising foam, which reached 10 feet high. The little boy lived because Madison -- and another man passing by who also leaped in to help -- saved him.

As wracked by grief and shock as Madison and Garrett's parents must be, they also are probably overcome with love -- and yes, pride -- that their daughter died doing something so noble for their son. Wouldn't you be?