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.
And One Way To Accomplish This Is: Forward this
message on. If you
do not
send it, you will have, once again passed up the
wonderful
opportunity to do
something nice and beautiful.
If you've received this, it is because someone
cares for you and it
means
there is probably at least someone for whom you
care.
If you're "too busy" to take those few minutes
right now to forward
this
message on, would this be the VERY first time you
didn't do that
little
thing that would make a difference in your
relationships?
The more people that you send this to, the better
you'll be at
reaching out
to those you care about.
Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put
into the lives of
others comes
back into your own.
May Your Day Be Blessed As Special As You Are.