Thank you

I read a blog post last week that dovetailed with something I’d been moving toward recently. In the post, the author wrote a lovely note to the widower of a woman who’d gone to the same church as the blog author. In the note, she wrote about how much she’d liked and admired the woman. After the widower read the note, he commented that he really wished his wife could have read the note, too. The blog author ended her post with a call to speak up and say the positive things that we think about others.

This has been something I’ve tried to do for years and was sparked by a somewhat similar situation. My first husband’s family couldn’t have been more different from me that if I’d been born on a different planet. They were and are lovely people, but we invariably struggled to find common ground – all except for his uncle. Uncle Bill didn’t fit in the family either and for whatever reason, he and I clicked. Now he was much older, lived in San Francisco so it’s not like I saw him frequently, but when I did I could always relax and not have to worry about that mutual incomprehension.

A few years ago – and long after my first husband and I were divorced – I learned Bill was seriously ill and not expected to survive. I kept meaning to drop him a note and thank him, to tell him how comforting it was whenever he was around and how much I’d really enjoyed his friendship. But I never did and of course he died.

I’m on a mission to never repeat that again. You know that motto “If you see something, say something”? Well I’m changing it to something more appropriate for me. If I feel something positive, or I see you doing something really cool, I’m going to say something.