I made my husband cry.

It wasn’t planned. I wasn’t attempting to do that at all. 

Last week a friend died. She had a good long life, although as humans we often crave to live longer and wish our loved ones do as well. When her daughter called to tell me of her passing, there was a catch in her throat and my heart went out to her. 

This friend was the person I wished I had had as a mother. I know you can’t always know what really goes on in people’s homes behind closed doors, but her treatment of me had always been nothing but kind. She seemed wise. I met her and her family at church and she was the one who struck up the friendship. I was kind of shy to begin with and due to never feeling like I’m good enough, suffered poor self esteem. She was just nice to me. She would seek me out to speak to me. When I was in college she wrote me letters. When I student taught and lived out of town, she said if the weather was bad, don’t drive in bad conditions, but come stay at her house because she had an extra bedroom. When I came back after college and lived here, we kept up with each other and after her husband died, we would sometimes go out to eat or I would go and visit her. 

Last week when I stopped in to see her family, it about broke my heart. One son was in tears. The other two sons as caretakers were wan. They were exhausted. What they did, they did for love and they were kind and respected her wishes. 

I held things together talking to the daughter on the phone, and even afterwards. I didn’t break down seeing the sons. Even at the visitation I was OK. But near the end of the funeral, I broke down and cried. And as a result, my husband cried with me because he said when I hurt, he hurts. As I said, I didn’t plan to make him cry.

My friend was ready to go; she was 98 ½ and her health was declining. As Christians, we believe we will go to heaven. It’s just that I will miss her kindness. I wonder if she knew how she touched my life and made me dream of what it would be like to have a “normal” family life. 

I just hope that somehow I’m showing an equal amount of kindness to people so that maybe, just maybe they’ll miss me too when I die.

Apparently I'm one of the few people who still writes letters and sends cards through snail mail. I have a couple of older friends who I know enjoy it, and although the majority of the people I know have email or Facebook, I still will sit down and write a letter or send a card. 

As I look at some genealogy stuff, I think, we will have a generation of people who will not have those letters or cards to leave behind. My great aunt and her husband would write letters to each other since he traveled a lot. Some were sweet and tender. Others were desperate -- one had him writing he hadn't heard from her and he was upset and sorry if he had done something to upset her. I never met him, but I feel like I've gotten to know him through some of the letters he wrote. 

During the Pandemic, and even now, I am still writing and sending cards. I am almost embarrassed to admit this, but I sent a fan letter to a British actor I like just to say I enjoyed his work. I'm 60 years old and I wondered if I was acting like a teenager. But maybe he just needed to receive a handwritten note. At least that is my hope. 

I have a friend who is fighting cancer. I've mailed cards and packages to her in hopes of keeping her spirits up. She responds through email to thank me and that is sweet, knowing how she is struggling. 

A few years ago the local sports director of the local station made a comment about taking up knitting. I challenged him to come to our group at church and he did and did a sweet story. We became friends. The funny thing is I don't care for sports, but I cared for him. Every so often I would send him a note or letter and sometimes I would hear from him and sometimes I wouldn't. I didn't care. I just felt the need to write him. He left last fall to go somewhere else and he said that he may not have always told me, but those notes or cards always came at a time when he needed them most. I was truly touched. 

Hopefully you have someone in your life touching you in a way whether it is a note, card, email, phone call, or conversation.