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Friday
Tale - Say Something Nice One day a teacher asked her students to
list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper,
leaving a space between each name.
Then she told them to think of the nicest
thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.
It took the remainder of the class period
to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one
handed in the papers.
That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the
name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone
else had said about that individual.
On Monday she gave each student his or her
list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she
heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!"
and, "I didn't know others liked me so much," were most of the
comments.
No one ever mentioned those papers in
class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with
their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its
purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That
group of students moved on.
Several years later, one of the students
was killed in Viet Nam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special
student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He
looked so handsome, so mature.
The church was packed with his friends.
One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher
was the last one to bless the coffin
As she stood there, one of the soldiers
who acted as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math
teacher?" he asked. She nodded: "yes." Then he said:
"Mark talked about you a lot."
After the funeral, most of Mark's former
classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were
there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.
"We want to show you something,"
his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket "They found this on
Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."
Opening the billfold, he carefully removed
two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and
refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were
the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's
classmates had said about him.
"Thank you so much for doing
that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured
it."
All of Mark's former classmates started to
gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still
have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home."
Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to
put his in our wedding album."
"I have mine too," Marilyn said.
"It's in my diary"
Then Vicki, another classmate, reached
into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled
list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki
said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we all
saved our lists"
That's when the teacher finally sat down
and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see
him again.
The density of people in society is so
thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when
that one day will be.
So please, tell the people you love and
care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too
late.
~ from Jim Gentil's Positive E-newsletter
There is a friend who
sticks closer than a brother.
~ Proverbs 18:24
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