Out Loud

1982

Christmas was peering out from its normally forgotten room. Dottie sighed with despair. She wasn’t looking forward to this particular Christmas. Her friends and family were scattered from California to Illinois to New York. Dottie had nobody to share Christmas with.

Still she had outdone herself. A four foot Christmas tree stood in the highest place of honor she could bestow upon it: the living room table. No matter where in the room she sat, the little Christmas tree twinkled it’s happy lights. Shiny garlands draped every doorway. Christmas ornaments hung from chandeliers and windows. Lights twinkled throughout the apartment framing every available opening. Though it was beautiful to look at there was no meaning to be found in the glitter. An empty feeling crept into her heart. Dottie felt very alone.

Always with a ready smile and a Merry Christmas, to the world Dottie appeared to be jolly with the spirit of Christmas. Santa Claus pins, candy cane earrings and little ringing bells adorned her. Outwardly she exuded a happy face but inwardly, the loneliness was overwhelming. Dottie never told a soul how lonely it felt to face the holidays by herself. She put on a happy Christmas face and hid her sadness.

At work they normally drew straws to see who’d be stuck working Christmas Day. She knew that the other two bartenders, Jessie and Polly, had places to go and families to share the holidays with.

Jessie had pulled the short straw the year before and had worked while her husband and son visited family in another state. That had been a miserable Christmas for Jessie. Dottie couldn’t bear to see her friends suffer that way so she offered to work a double shift Christmas Day. Jessie and Polly could be with their families and Dottie would be better off out of the house on Christmas Day.

Dottie spent Christmas Eve opening the presents sent from her far away family as she watched Miracle on 34th Street with her cat. Loneliness engulfed her.

Christmas morning dawned and Dottie pulled herself wearily out of bed. Depression touched every corner of her soul and getting ready for work was a supreme effort of will. She dressed in green pants, a white blouse and tied a red ribbon around her neck. The ribbon felt like a noose.

Dottie couldn’t help but imagine what the rest of the world was doing. Visions tormented her of families sitting cross-legged around the Christmas tree laughing and sharing hugs and kisses and love. Her eyes filled with tears.

She prayed that a few lonely souls would somehow find their way into her bar. She knew that her hopes were empty ones. It was going to be a long twelve hours of trying to look cheery for what she knew would be her only customer: Pat, the dining room waitress. All the hotel guests were back home and the only customers would be families eating Christmas dinner out.

Jessie, one of the bartenders who Dottie was working for, had previously instructed Dottie that there was a present locked in the cupboard for Pat, who’s name Jessie had drawn from the hat.

In the cupboard stood a tiny Christmas tree next to a box full of presents, all gift-wrapped with colorful paper and ribbons and bows. Jessie sure had gone all out for Pat. Dottie took the tree and the presents out of the cupboard and found to her greatest surprise that the tree had her name on it! The tree was a foot tall, twinkling with lights and sporting a yellow star on top.

She took a closer look at the box full of presents. The first one had Pat’s name on it but all the rest were for Dottie! Awe and wonder danced across her face. For her? They’d done all this for her?

Tears filled Dottie’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She put the tree on the bar and arranged all the presents around it. Jessie and Polly had been so grateful that she’d volunteered to work that they’d engineered a surprise visit from Santa.

That little tree became huge in Dottie’s eyes. It became the symbol of the true Spirit of Christmas. Dottie could feel their warmth and their love embracing her as she sat spellbound watching the lights blinking on the tree. Tears of despair turned into tears of joy. This is what Christmas was all about: the warmth, the caring, the thoughtfulness, the sharing between people, not of presents, but of themselves. It was a piece of Jessie’s heart and Polly’s heart warming the bar all around the tree, chasing Dottie’s loneliness away.

Suddenly Dottie didn’t feel so alone. Their friendship had reached out into the lonely bar and lit it up with joy. This was the real Christmas, the Christmas that gets lost amid the hustle and bustle of parties, the mountains of presents, the hoards of food and the glitter of tinsel.

It touched Dottie deeply that they’d thought of her there all alone and she realized that she wasn’t really alone after all. Jessie and Polly had filled her Christmas with their outpouring of love. For years after, whenever she put up the little Christmas tree, Dottie remembered her friends at work who had given her the most wonderful gift of all
– The Spirit of Christmas.

To Jessie and Polly wherever you are, almost thirty years later I still remember what you did for me, and it still makes me cry. Thank you!

Quitting smoking was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I tried most of the conventional methods of quitting and they didn’t work for me. After many years of trying and failing, I finally had a flash of inspiration and it helped me to actually quit smoking. What follows is how I got started, and how I stopped smoking.

My high school had a smoking lounge and that’s where all the cool kids hung out. Nick was a cool kid. I wasn’t.

Nick was such a hunk that I just HAD to find a way to meet him. I didn’t know anybody who knew him. He wasn’t in any of my classes but he did hang out in the smoking lounge. He was cool, he was gorgeous, and he didn’t have a girlfriend. I intended to change that. None of my friends hung out in the smoking lounge. They didn’t smoke. I’d look like a jerk just standing out there unless of course, I had a cigarette…

Cigarettes were great! I got a buzz every time I smoked one and for once in my life, I looked COOL. Maybe I’d even meet some of the other cool kids! I was only using the cigarettes as a prop. I wasn’t hooked on them and I didn’t intend to be. I just wanted to meet The Hunk.

I never did meet any of the cool kids but I did finally meet The Hunk through one of my neighbors (I hadn’t needed the cigarettes after all). Nick, however, was not interested in me and he disappeared a couple months later in the wild blue yonder of graduation. The only thing I had accomplished in the smoking lounge was to start smoking. The cigarettes didn’t disappear. I liked smoking. I liked the freedom of being able to go anywhere I wanted and look COOL, leaning up against a wall with a cigarette.

I was seventeen.

By the time I turned nineteen I didn’t want to smoke cigerettes any more. I wanted to quit smoking but I couldn’t. For the next eight years I tried all kinds of ways to quit smoking and never made it past 48 hours. I had it bad!

I tried to quit cold turkey. I tried gradual withdrawal filters. I bought these minty-tasting drops that you put on your tongue that made your mouth taste great and made cigarettes taste awful. I smoked them anyway. Foul tasting as they were with those drops I still had to have that cigarette! They didn’t have the nicotine patch back then so I don’t know if it would have worked for me. Somehow I doubt it.

I was one of those cigarette junkies who’d run out of smokes in the middle of the night and go rummaging through my car, feeling down in the seats looking for one that got away. I’d go through ashtrays pulling out old butts and relighting them. I had it worse than any heroin addict.

By the time I turned twenty seven I was totally fed up. Cigarettes were expensive. Cigarettes were unhealthy. People everywhere were quitting, why couldn’t I? Whereas once almost everyone smoked now it seemed that nobody smoked. Cigarettes weren’t cool anymore.

My boyfriend didn’t smoke. I always felt so guilty when we kissed. He tasted so clean and fresh and I didn’t. I really wanted to quit. He really wanted me to quit. As much as I wanted to start smoking to meet Nick, I wanted to stop smoking to stay with Ryan. It’s really hard for a smoker and a non-smoker to be together.

I wanted to quit for myself, too. I couldn’t forget all the pictures I’d seen of cigarette smoker’s lungs. I didn’t want to die 10 or 20 years ahead of my time. And just think of what I could do with all that extra money!

The plan was simple. I used a daily chart that divided each day into half hours. Every half hour I’d log how many cigarettes I’d smoked in that time. If I didn’t smoke that half hour I’d fill in that block with a bright orange marker. The object was to cut down and keep cutting down until I wasn’t so addicted to nicotine anymore. Then maybe I could stop.

The first couple days I just kept a record of my smoking. I didn’t really try to cut down. I did feel really great when I got so busy I didn’t smoke and could color a square bright orange.

After a couple days I starting trying to go a half hour just so that I could color in a square. Every bright orange square was a huge accomplishment. I’d find myself watching the clock and waiting an extra five or ten minutes for a cigarette just to be able to color in a square.

As the days went by I was able to color in more and more squares. My body was gradually beginning to withdraw from nicotine.

I didn’t put a time limit on myself. That was too much pressure. I figured a half hour at a time was pressure enough. I don’t remember exactly how long it took but I finally got to where I was smoking only three cigarettes a week. THREE cigarettes in a whole WEEK! I was so proud of that!

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I mean, why bother to smoke at all if you’re down to only three cigarettes a week, right? Most of the time my body didn’t crave cigarettes anymore. I’d get a twinge here and there but nothing I couldn’t handle. But about three times a week I’d get this major urge. It would hit me BAD. That’s the only time I smoked and I’d only smoke one just to get past those last few big urges.

After a couple of weeks of smoking just three a week, I quit. I finally quit smoking, absolutely and totally. The major urges had faded into twinges and I could handle twinges.

So after 8 years of trying to quit, I made it! I really and truly made it!

When it comes to quitting smoking there’s only one rule: Don’t stop trying to quit. Every stop smoking method does not work for everybody. Some people CAN quit using filters, gum, breath drops, acupuncture, nicotine patches or even cold turkey. We’re all different.

If you try something and it doesn’t work, don’t give up. Wait awhile, let go of that feeling of failure, then try again. YOU are not a failure. That particular method failed for you. So wait awhile and try again. Try something else. Sooner or later something will work. Just don’t ever stop trying!

Believe me, it’s worth the wait!

I was on my knees crying, candy scattered all around me while the Crewboys laughed. Every time I tried to get up they pushed me to the ground again. I was surrounded. Four boys and a girl had me pinned down. I didn’t stand a chance against them.

Across the street my cousin Abby stood frozen, watching in horror. Afraid to come and help lest they get her too, afraid to run home and leave me alone with them, Abby stood staring openmouthed in terror.

The Crewboys had been terrorizing us for months. We had to pass thru their territory to get to the candy store. If we were unlucky enough to be spotted the chase began, us running as fast as our eight year old legs could carry us, the Crewboys hot on our tails.

There were five of them, four brothers and a sister. The boys ranged from nine to thirteen years old. They had crew cuts, a rare sight when most boys had shaggy hair in honor of the Beatles. Hence the nickname “Crewboys”. The girl, Sarah, was fifteen. She was their leader.

Two little kids walking home with bags full of candy, Abby and I were easy targets for the Crewboy Gang and many a day had us gasping for air by the time we reached the safety of our block. The candy store was a lure we couldn’t resist. A quarter would fill a small bag with penny candy from the colorful candy jars at Pinky’s.

We had always managed to get home before the Crewboys caught us but our luck ran out on this ill-fated day. Abby was faster than I and in the lead as the Crewboys chased us. They caught me and pushed me to the ground. My bag of candy flew open and all the candy scattered in the street. I had hoped they just wanted the candy and would grab it and run but they had no interest in the candy. They wanted to bully me. That’s how they got their kicks.

Abby kept running until she was far enough away to escape them and then stopped to watch helplessly as they tormented me. The Crewboys towered over me with big feet ready for kicking. It wasn’t looking good.

Then out of nowhere came a tall, raven haired man with a long, lean face and piercing black eyes. He came charging in waving his arms and hollering like a madman and the Crewboys took off like the devil incarnate was after them. But he was no devil, he was my guardian angel straight from heaven come to save me from these neighborhood bullies. My hero helped me up and asked if I were okay and walked us safely home.

More than forty years later I still remember this man. I never knew his name or saw him again or even had a chance to thank him. But I remember him and in sharing our story, send him many thank you’s. His good deed never went forgotten.

What happened to the Crewboys? Abby’s big brother took care of them after that incident and they never bothered us again.

It was a glorious summer day with the sun shining brightly in a clear, blue sky. My cousin Abby and I were playing in a creek bed. We were six years old. The trickle of water that flowed gently over the smooth, round stones felt good against my bare feet. Birds chittered and chirped and the sound of faraway voices were merely a tinkle on the breeze. As long as our parents were “over there somewhere” they wouldn’t know that we were in the creek bed.

Suddenly a cloud passed over the sun, darkening it. The air took on an ominous heaviness. Abby and I looked up with foreboding. It was her father standing on the ridge up over our heads glowering down at us. Uncle Henry towered over the other adults and he stood at the front of the pack. My heart took off running though my feet were glued to the spot. Uh oh. We were in trouble again.

I grabbed Abby’s arm. “Let’s run!”

We ran about two yards when she pulled back. “No! It’ll be worse if we run!”

Uncle Henry was an frightful man. A giant of a man who could freeze you with one look. He knew how to twist your innards into excruciating knots with merely a stare. He knew how to strike terror into the hearts of wayward youngsters.

Many a time had we earned his wrath, giggling together as we hid outside while the sun sank down beyond the horizon and Uncle Henry called for us to come in. Sometimes we explored an empty field, one that housed a myriad of tiny toads. Catching toads was one of our favorite pastimes. But there was one small dilemma: the toad field was off-limits to us. It was a rule we blatantly ignored.

In the other direction was the nuthouse. An insane asylum that scared us even worse than Uncle Henry. The crazy people dressed all in white lunging at us as we walked past scared us so badly we never walked past it again. Looking back I realize there were no crazy people threatening us, just the staff having themselves a good laugh scaring a couple of little kids. It worked.

Abby and I were notorious for hiding out especially when we knew we were in trouble. Our favorite hidey hole was a tiny room that only a kid could get into. Abby’s bedroom closet had an unfinished attic at the back of it where Christmas decorations and doodads were stored. Behind the boxes of decorations down along the floor was a tunnel just big enough for Abby and I to scramble into. After a few feet the tunnel narrowed and we had to inch along on our bellies like snakes to continue onward. At the end of the tunnel was a room, a tiny room with pull string to turn the light bulb on.

Abby and I spent a lot of time hiding out in that little room, often to the sound of Uncle Henry’s voice bellowing in anger at our sudden disappearance. That room was our safe-house, the place no adult knew about or could get to.

Outside the hidey hole we knew we’d find Uncle Henry’s scowling face, ominous with its implication of dire consequences. It didn’t matter that he’d never actually DONE anything to be frightened of except for one whooping I heard Abby get. He still scared the dickens out of me. Why did he strike such utter terror in the hearts of us mischievous kids? I have no answer for that.

On the verge of adulthood I moved far away and I didn’t see Uncle Henry again. Years passed and Uncle Henry remained in my memory as this frightening personage, towering over us like an angry giant, striking abject terror into our young psyches.

When I saw him again many years later, I discovered a man with an incredible sense of humor and a ready smile. Not the formidable man of memory, but a man whose blue eyes twinkled in merriment as he described a little room he’d built over thirty years earlier, a room with tunnels leading into it and a light bulb which never seemed to burn out.

My built-in antennae went up. There was a secret, a big one. My parents were whispering together at the front window. My Mom, her forehead creased with worry and Dad with an angry frown were huddled together in frantic conversation. Mom kept looking out the window. Something was going on, something big, and I wanted to see. I ran upstairs to look out from a higher perch. Big secrets never included me.

There was a huge house in the middle of the street. It didn’t look anything like our house or any of our neighbor’s houses. This was an inner city house, a shabby profusion of wood that looked very out of place in our middle-class neighborhood. It was tall and narrow and seemed to lean. The scarcity of windows and peeling grey paint added to its severe appearance, giving it a destitute look. It was moving down the street at a snail’s pace. It’s final destination was the empty lot at the end of our street.

Pine Valley Way was a pleasant dead end street. Many of the houses had natural stone porches and a congenial air. They were houses that invited neighbors for an friendly chat, not like this forbidding house that looked very unapproachable. I got the distinct feeling of unfriendly eyes watching from the narrow windows. Ours was a small neighborhood where everyone knew everyone, friendliness abounded and traditional families made their home: traditional as in two parents, a couple of kids, and no skeletons in the closet or basement or anywhere else. It was a neighborhood of families with hardworking parents and carefree kids who played up and down the street without a worry in the world.

The Calvin family was not a traditional family. If there was a father I never saw him. I remember hearing the word jail in reference to him. I never saw a mother either. The words drunk and race track were whispered about her. I don’t know whether these were rumors or facts. Being a kid such things weren’t important. The only matter of importance was the kids and whether they were potential friends or potential bullies.

The only Calvins I ever saw were eleven year old Deb and her siblings, and there sure were a lot of siblings. I never did quite get their number straight nor learn all of their names. Deb was the oldest, the resident adult in the Calvin household. She could be seen walking up the street with either a laundry basket or a kid riding on her hip, and a crowd of younger kids surrounding her. It was an uncommon sight, this gaggle of unkempt youngsters with dirty faces and snotty noses. Deb appeared to be in charge of cooking, housekeeping, laundry, and the full care of her brothers and sisters. She was eleven years old, the same age as me. She seemed so much older.

The Calvins didn’t have a chance. The neighborhood adults were up in arms because they had knocked a few thousand dollars off our property values with their inner-city house and squalid lifestyle. The boundaries of the city were slowly creeping outward threatening to encompass our middle-class neighborhood. The kids didn’t like them because they were different, not like the rest of us. We called Deb the vampire though I don’t remember why. Maybe their old house conjured up visions of ghosts and goblins and haunts. But the most unpopular of the Calvin clan was Mickey, the second oldest.

Mickey was a rambunctious boy with shaggy blond hair and mischievous blue eyes always searching for an unpopular diversion. My Dad didn’t like him because he swung from our little tree out front and broke it.

Mickey was reputed to steal the bulbs out of the Christmas tree lights that adorned everyone’s front yards in December. The Calvins were the only family that didn’t decorate an outdoor tree. I don’t think Mickey was ever caught in the act but who else could have done such a dastardly deed?

The name Mickey Calvin became synonymous with broken windows, flat tires, dead chipmunks, stolen fruit and other such evil deeds though I’m not sure if the deeds actually happened or existed only as deeds he MIGHT do someday. Our broken tree is the only event I can actually attribute to Mickey because my father saw him do it.

Kids have much shorter memories than adults and before long I became fast friends with the two oldest Calvins, Mickey and Deb. Mickey turned out to be one of the best friends I had. Being a bit strange for a girl I much preferred toads and snakes over dolls and these were a commodity that Mickey could provide in ample quantity. Their house was at the end of the street at the edge of the woods. Trails snaked thru the woods down to a swamp.

Another service that Mickey provided was that of protector. I was small for my age and the bullies liked to pick on me and chase me home from school. That stopped when I made friends with Mickey. Suddenly I could go anywhere without fear of bullies. There was no such protector for Mickey, however.

One day Mickey went down to the swamp with two much older boys. Like Mickey, these boys were not of our ilk. He must have known them from his old neighborhood because they carried guns, an unheard of thing in our neighborhood. Three boys went down into the woods and only two returned. We never saw Mickey again and the neighborhood adults gave a sigh of relief that the terror of the neighborhood would bother us no more.

Whispered rumors said it was an accidental shooting, that one of the guns just went off and shot Mickey straight through the heart while they were walking. Being a kid I never heard the official news version of it, not that it made much difference to Mickey. Dead was dead. The hows and whys and wherefores wouldn’t matter much to him.

I often wonder how many people actually stop to remember this wayward boy with a hint of fondness, of kind remembrance, of wistfulness. Somehow I don’t believe there are very many. But I remember Mickey. He was my friend. And if there’s a heaven I hope he’s in it, with a slingshot in his pocket and a tree to swing from and a swamp to explore.

Cell phones make us rude to our friends and family in ways most people don’t even think about. The phone becomes more important than whoever you are with.

1. You are sitting in a restaurant with someone or maybe a group of folks. Everyone took time out of their busy schedules to meet at this restaurant to spend time together. A cell phone rings. And gets answered. That person is telling everyone at the table that whoever is on the phone is MORE IMPORTANT than whoever they are with at the restaurant. 99% of all calls could have waited until after the gathering when you are in your car to go home. Be with the people you are with. Be in the moment. If you’ve made plans with people then those people should have your full attention.

2. You are in a car with others. A cell phone rings. And gets answered. I see this in my rearview mirror all the time and it makes me very sad. There’s a person in the car behind me gabbing on the phone while another person is staring out the window, very alone and very ignored. Talk to the people in the car with you. They are with you in the moment, sharing this moment of life with you. What an opportunity to actually talk to them!

3. You drive 6 hours to spend a few days with friends or family. You’ve taken time off of work, spent gobs of money on gas, driven all these hours to get there, and what do they do? They answer their cell phone. You’ve driven all that way to be with them and they are busy on their cell phone, ignoring you. How rude is that? What’s my incentive for driving to see you when you are simply going to ignore me every time your cell phone rings?

4. You’ve gone to a friend’s house to spend the evening hanging out. Back in the day this used to be such a precious event. It was important to people. But what happens now? You guessed it. A cell phone rings…

Be with the people you are with. Live in the moment. Be respectful to your friends and family and show them that they are important to you. Turn the cell phone OFF.

Jimbo could have taken a shopping list to the store with him. He doesn’t need you to be his list on the phone. Janie is perfectly capable of finding the can of soup in the cupboard. You can reschedule with Peggy Lee when you get home or when your guests leave. None of these things are urgent. None of these things should be more important than the people you are with right now.

The moral of the story is: Love the one you’re with!

Got a bunch of rocks in your yard you want out of the way? How about that broken down old computer? Ready to clean out the attic or garage? There’s an EASY way to recycle your old junk.

Recycling has been around for decades but how many people actually do it? Of all the things you can recycle, how much actually gets recycled? Not very much.

The trouble is that it isn’t easy enough. Some garbage companies give you special recycle bins for glass, plastic and paper and they’ll pick it up at the curb. That’s easy. People will do that. But to drive someplace to drop it off? Life is just too busy for that.

To complicate it further, buying recycled goods isn’t always cost effective nor desireable to folks. Recycling just hasn’t hit its mark yet. Or has it?

Paper, plastic, cans, glass… that’s just a tiny fraction of what goes to the dump every day. You’d be amazed at what ends up at the dump. Clothes, furniture, books, household goods of all sorts, you name it and it’s laying in a dump somewhere.

When you want to clean out your garage or basement, you want it gone NOW. You don’t want to pile up all the unwanted stuff and then have it laying around until some future day when you have the time to take it somewhere. Time is precious. Time is important.

Some folks have yard sales with it. Others take it to Goodwill and donate it. Some pay companies to come and get it. But there’s another option and it’s EASY. You get immediate gratification that you gave someone something they really wanted. And it’s EASY. Did I mention that?

It’s called Freecycle. It’s on the internet at Freecycle.org and there are Freecycle groups all over the country. You just find a group or groups in your city and sign up with them. That’s the hardest part. Once you are a member (which is FREE), you post your giveaways online and you’ll find someone out there who wants the very thing you want to give away.

Got a bunch of rocks in your yard you want out of the way? Freecycle them! We actually went to someone’s house and went all around their yard and woods removing rocks for them because we wanted free rocks for a gardening project. Rocks are a hot commodity.

How about that broken down old computer? Trust me, some computer geek would love to have the parts from it. Maybe your daylilies are overcrowded. You might find someone who’ll divide them for you in exchange for free daylilies. It isn’t just a table or kid’s clothes that people want. Even broken furniture has a place in someone’s life. You just never know until you post it.

Your email is hidden publicly. People read your post and email you thru the Freecycle network. Usually you leave the item on your porch or in the driveway, give them your address and tell them when the item will be out there. They come pick it up and you never even meet them. No worries about safety. They don’t come into your home. You never even come into contact with them.

All you did was post it online, answer a few emails, and carry the item out the front door. Someone got a really happy freebie and you kept an item out of the city dump. How cool is that?

Do you ever wonder what impact you’ve had in the world? What legacy you are leaving behind? Who will remember you? The answer might surprise you…

I’d reached that point in life where you wonder what impact you’ve had on the world, what legacy you are leaving behind, how will people remember you? How many people would actually miss you? Those questions were haunting me as the years came staring at me.

I’d just signed up with Facebook and was looking for my people. Us children of the sixties and seventies just missed the computer generation by one and our friends aren’t as readily online as most today. So I had to look far and wide to find just a few, sometimes finding the children of my friends, but not my friends.

One such child was now in his twenties and we became buddies. I’d not had much contact with him in life and could count how many times I’d actually seen him in person, but now we were Facebook buddies and one night he popped in to chat.

This young man poured his heart out to me. He was frustrated with his father and they weren’t getting along. His father had been my long time friend and I knew him well. I fully understood the agonies his son was sharing.

But then came the big surprise. He told me that I was like a second mother to him, that he loved and respected me immensely, and that he’d chosen his career due to me. I’d barely spent time with this young man and here he was telling me some of his happiest teenage days were spent with me. I was floored. How could I have had such an impact? I barely knew this young man.

He was 14 when I first met him. I was renovating my house singlehanded, just little old me painting, doing carpentry, drywall, countertops, replacing windowpanes and such things. I was just a simple gal who couldn’t afford to pay the big dudes to do it so I bought how-to books and dove in.

His father wanted him to learn responsibility and hard work and sent him to help me. I felt bad. I didn’t know this boy and here his father was making him help me. So we painted and played at remodeling, neither of us knowing much of what we were doing.

I’m a big computer geek and spent many hours designing shareware games and selling them on the internet. I showed him the games and my programming books and shared my enthusiasm with him. He played with the dog and took her for walks. They didn’t have any pets at home.

He spent a handful of days one summer with me. After that, his family and I drifted apart. I probably didn’t see him five times from then until I found him on Facebook ten years later.

His heart came pouring out and he told me those were some of the happiest days of his teenage years, the days he’d spent helping me. He told me he’d chosen his career path in computers after experiencing my enthusiasm and went on to work for a major company.

And more surprising, he said I was able to find the good in everybody and he was still trying to learn that one. I think of myself as being pretty cynical, not open arms to the world. All I could do as he typed these words was cry. How could I have made such an impact? Was it really possible that I’d touched one person this profoundly? I was in awe.

I left the chat with a new view of the world and our impact on it. How many people, I wondered, had made such an impact and never knew it? A few days later I found another person I knew, someone I’d worked with for a few weeks. His father owned half the company I worked for and he came to work with us one summer. He was one of the few people I’ve worked with over the years who really impressed me with his work ethic, intelligence and willingness.

So remembering how the first young man had shared his impression of me, I shared my impression with this second young man. I told him what I thought of him during the time we worked together. Those days were 20+ years ago so no doubt this man was as surprised to hear my remembrances as I was to hear the other. I thought of it as paying it forward.

We all have times in our lives that we wonder how we’ve impacted people, what mark we’ve left on the world, what our purpose is and will we ever fulfill it. Everyone has doubts and sooner or later, we feel our mortality and it scares us.

If you do nothing else in this world, pick one person who has made a difference in your life, one person who you remember with the highest regards, someone who wouldn’t expect it, and share your remembrances with them. Leave that legacy for them to take away. Trust me, you’ll feel really good about it