You Never Know...

I was recently asked to describe a time in my life when a person said something to me or treated me in such a way that it made a positive difference in my life. What immediately came to mind was something that transpired many years ago. The event itself was not monumental, but the impact that it made on me forever changed my life.

The image that came to mind was an evening when my family was camping with a bunch of friends. I was probably six or seven. The evening and the event itself were insignificant in of themselves, but the feelings that I experienced that night and the event that followed, had an indelible impact on me.

Donald (my mom's friend's boyfriend) and I had walked from the campsite down to the water's edge. I don't remember if we were fishing or if he was playing the guitar or what we were doing. I don't even remember specifically what we were talking about. What I do remember was that he was speaking to me as if I mattered. He acknowledged that how I felt and what I thought were important. He paid attention to me (something my own parents rarely did) and he talked to me as if I was an adult. Like I said, I don't remember specifically what was said, but I remember the tone: introspective and philosophical. No adult had ever talked to me like that before. Heck, most of them still don't.

We must have sat at the water's edge under a starlit sky for hours, engaged in a dialog lost from my memory years ago. There seemed to be such a sensitivity about him, and he was the only adult that seemed to understand who I was. Before we walked back to camp, he said something to me in closing (again, I can't remember what it was)- words of encouragement of some kind. He then kissed me on my forehead and we headed back to the others sitting around the campfire. He seemed like an angel to me, and my heart overflowed with love for him.

A few months later when my mom was picking us up after work, I overheard her mention Donald to the babysitter. He had committed suicide by filling up the bathtub with water, climbing in and placing an electric radio in the tub with him. He took his own life.

I was shocked and deeply saddened that a man that I had felt so much love and admiration for had felt so isolated and uncared for that he would do such a thing. It's 40 years later and I still think of Donald and how he made me feel that night at the lake. He couldn't have known how much I thought of him, or the impact that he had on me that night. It hurts me to think that he never realized the lives that he touched, or the amount of love that others had for him.

We often get bogged down in the mire of our own self-doubts and lack of self worth. Despair is probably the most crippling of emotions. Hopefully that is not an emotion that often overcomes you, but if it ever does, please remember a couple of things: you have had a positive impact on many of the lives that you have touched and are loved more than you realize. You never know how much you matter to someone, even if it's just one little girl.