How often do you feel appreciation for others without expressing it?

 

Consider as a fact that many times each day you do not speak words of appreciation (thanks, admiration, inspiration, etc.) that you are already feeling and thinking to those around you.

 

Somehow, usually without awareness, we imagine that those around us, those who are important in our lives, already know and already feel our appreciation, saving us the effort (and perhaps the courage) of expressing the difference (however big or small) these people are making for us.

 

And, in particular, we rarely genuinely express our appreciation to those most dear to us.

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Will your unspoken appreciation for others die with you?

 

Let me give you an example of how I expressed my appreciation to my mother. Here is what I mailed to her

and to some other friends in July 2000 (she died in November of 2012).

 

Sometimes, Mama, I imagine what I will say about you at your funeral  (hopefully many, many happy years away from now). I can always feel the depth of my love for you and gratitude to you, for what you’ve done for me, and, especially,  for who you were and are for me.

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But you are the number one person  who I want to hear what I would say about you. I have decided to write a eulogy now, not only so that I can share it with my other friends, but mainly so that I can share it with you.

Every day you are happily alive, I am grateful. May you have many, many more years of enjoyment in your life.

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For my mother, Dorothy, 78 years old now, living in the beautiful mountains of Tennessee

 

I remember...

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• after walking a mile and a half home from grammar school, you would have pan-fried potatoes (with a bottle of catsup) waiting for me. We would sit and talk together as I ate my potatoes (my favorite dish then, next to hamburgers). We would just talk about life. Unless I wanted to, it was never about grades or my school work.

• lying on the bed, with you in the middle, my sister on one side and me on the other. We would be propped up on our elbows  and you would read to us for an hour at a time: Little Men, Little Women, Old Yellar, How the Leopard Got Its Spots, articles from the Reader’s Digest, etc.

• having long, enjoyable conversations with you about the meaning of life, God, psychology, etc.

• you calling me in from playing in the backyard to let me know that my favorite radio show was on, either The Shadow Knows or Yukon King.

• building a fire with you and canning vegetables together in the backyard.

• how you would express appreciation and admiration for my crazy projects like digging tunnels all through the backyard, blood typing all the neighbors, preparing and conducting the yearly “great leaf party,” planning and conducting the egg-fight contest, building various tree houses, snow sleds, and go-carts, trying to enroll neighbors and students into my libertarian political philosophy.

• always knowing and feeling that, whatever troubles I had in school or with my peers, you were always there for me.

• how you would wake me up in the morning for school with a cheerful “Rise and shine!”

• how I always felt that you treated me, my brother, and my sister fairly.

• how I always knew and felt that you loved me, liked me, respected me, and honored me.

• how I always felt listened to by you and how you made me feel special.

• how you always made me feel smart and kind. 

• how you gave me the message that being selfish was okay (we’re all selfish).

• how you managed to let me grow up without my having to worry about the “adult problems” you had with my father and with the finances.

• you telling me that I had the power and the freedom to become anything I wanted to become.

• you telling me that I should always think for myself.

• you telling me that I should look both ways before crossing the street.

• thinking that your life and the way you led your life was greater and more magnificent than any of the lives of great people I had read about, and that I had the privilege of being the son of this great person

 

 

​I remember so many of the aphorisms or thoughts that you would repeat  (with help from my sister Karen in remembering some of these and apologies for any paraphrasing)...

 

• “Act the way you want to be, and soon you’ll be the way you act.”

• “People residing in glass houses should refrain from throwing hard obstacles.” (It took me a while to understand this one).

• “It’s the purpose of teenagers to rebel.”

• “Children should be seen and heard.”

• “When parents say to their children, ‘Act your age,’ they don’t see that the children are acting their age.

• “We’re all here to leave the world a little bit better place than we found it.”

• “The world doesn’t owe us a living.”

• “Don’t be an iconoclast.” (I was rather argumentative as a child and young teenager).

• “Politeness is the grease that helps us get along better.”

• “You can be dead right or dead wrong. But both ways you’re dead,”  (usually spoken with regard to driving a car).

• “Remember, there’s over a million dollars in this car,” (emphasizing love for us and the need for safety when we went driving).

• “I am captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul; and I thank what Gods may be for my unconquerable soul.”

• “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as night follows day, thou then cannot be false to any man.”

• “Let us then be up and doing with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.”

• “Oh joy! Oh rapture! Unforeseen!”

• “When the sun in the morning peeps over the hill and kisses the roses on my windowsill…” (singing)

• “Whatever things are lovely, think on these things.” (this was my grandfather Boog's favorite quote)

• “A person is about as happy as they make up their mind to be.”

• “People make their own good luck.”

• “Wherever you go, you can find friends.”

• “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”

• “By and large, people are decent.”

 

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One gift above all the others

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But one gift, Mama, stands out above all the rest, a gift, not of what you gave me or did for me, 

but a gift of who you were and are for me. I always knew that you loved your life and were glad to be born into this world.

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Your greatest gift to me was your own happiness. Whenever I felt a little depressed or resigned, you were always there as a first-hand example that joy in life was always open to me.

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You didn't need us to make you feel good about yourself

 

Also, you never made me feel “responsible” for your happiness. I always knew and know that you love me, think about me, are glad to hear from me. But you were and are not waiting around for me to “fill your life.”

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Whenever I call you from Tokyo (where I am living as I write this), I have to call you two or three times  before I can catch you home. You’re out busy having a great time playing bridge or partying with your friends, volunteering for the hospital or park service, tending your flower garden, reading a book, or walking through your beloved woods.

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You’re my mom!

 

Ask yourself throughout your day...

 

“How might I express appreciation now?”

 

Have you ever really expressed to your mother, to your father, to your child, to your brother or sister, to your wife or husband, to anyone really important in your life, the incredible difference s/he has made for you?

 

Do it now.

 

Isn’t it interesting that expressing appreciation is often a choice of courage?

 

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"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."

—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896, American woman writer)