Lesson Learned

I wrote the piece about my friends’ funeral last week and have received a number of comments and emails regarding it. I sent an email via classmates.com to Randee, one of David’s sisters, letting her know about the essay and asked her if she’d like to read it. She replied that she would and I sent it to her.

I received the following email from her after she read it and I have since asked her if it would be ok if I pasted it here. Obviously she said yes or I wouldn’t be doing it. For those of you out there that have suffered such losses I’m sure you’ll find your feelings were the same as Randee’s after your loss. For those that haven’t I hope you heed the lesson that permeates the entire email and do what you need to do so as not to regret it later.
Here’s the email:


The tears flowed from the moment I began to read your feelings about the funeral. I cried from the beginning to the end. Thanks for sharing your inner thoughts and for helping me to feel the need to reach out to those who shared in my life while they are still alive and able to know how much they meant to me, just to have been in my life. That is the lesson that I have learned from you and those who remembered David from their childhood.

I have to be honest, in many ways it was the warmest condolences of all, and in other ways it was the saddest. If only David knew, if only everyone’s lives weren't so busy that they took the time to let people know before they died that this person had touched their lives in some way or form. A lesson to be learned? Yes, for me it took this tragic time to know the importance of just saying hi to old friends and to let them know I was just thinking of them. I want them to know now! So, when all is more settled and my family can move on more independently, I plan to join classmates.com just so I can email old friends to say hi. So many old friends and acquaintances touched my life in so many different ways and I want them to know. I have been guilty of this "caught up in the life" frenzy that stops me from doing the little things that can mean a difference in a person's life, if only for a minute, an hour or maybe not at all, but at least they knew I thought of them.

Every corner we have turned, everyone has said what a kind, polite and caring brother, and as I said before it doesn't come as a surprise, my mother raised us all in the same mannerism as she has lived her life. It’s no wonder why we have a warm and most loving family, and it's no wonder why our kids are learning the same.

Thanks again Kevin,
love, randee


How do you not feel that? Go on, look up someone and say hi. It’ll mean a ton to you and you’d be surprised how much it means to them