A Conversation to Make a Big Difference

Nugget: A Conversation to Make a Big Difference

A common regret I hear from subscribers are like this one: "I wish I had told my aunt how much her support had meant to me. And now she's gone." (My hunch is that 90% of adults have special persons they have not thanked.)

Have you had a special person in your life that you've not thanked? Perhaps a teacher, coach, boss, professor, counselor, relative, cleric, or neighbor? An old friend or room-mate?

When we are young, we may not recognize the gifts we are given by others. Recognition might not occur until years later.

As well, when we're young, we don't often think to thank a special person, or we feel awkward thanking teacher and coaches. So Sometimes that special person is simply submerged in our life story and doesn't appear as a positive force until later.

For example, I regret never having thanked my high school chorus director, Louis Meier, or my drama teacher, Agnes Curry. When I eventually realized the gifts they had given me, they were gone. My U. S. Army education director in Italy, Mr. Damianos, gave me the opportunity to teach evening classes, and this experience was the basis for my completing a Ph. D. and having a career as a university professor. Sadly, he too had passed before I thought to thank him. I could only write a personal letter to his ailing widow.

So, if you have such persons you've not thanked, now is the time, or you'll have regrets later. If not now, when?

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." --William Arthur Ward

Fortunately, I've been able to express my gratitude to others like Professor Bill Howell, my Ph. D. advisor, with occasional phone calls for many years, and Elizabeth Newell, the mother of a boyhood friend, now with monthly calls (She's 95.) All the events in our lives lead to other events, and all that we have in this present moment is the result of past people and experiences.

As Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote, "At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."

Many of those who have helped you, some quite elderly, will be lifted up by your call or letter. (Has a person's support lifted you up when you were down? Probably so.)

Just as the forgiver benefits from forgiving, the grateful benefit from communicating gratitude. As the French proverb says, "Gratitude is the heart's memory." That conversation of gratitude is truly worth having.

Loren