Touching A Life

In the past few years, I've had the sad experience of losing people in my life who had a significant part in it.  

In my life, I have few regrets.  I am lucky that way.  My life has almost always been a lovely ride with a few bumps in it.  

I do have one regret.  And really, it's the reason that I've come to this conclusion about telling someone how much they have affected my life.

A few years ago, we lost a great family friend in our lives, Rob.  He was a strange man, but he was a wonderful man.  He always had a joke, however inappropriate, and he was always kind to me.  He was a big part in my life because he was my dad's best friend and when I was a teenager, he was my manager in the first job I ever had.  He plays in many great memories growing up, from listening to dirty jokes while my dad played crib or computer games with him, or sitting by the fire watching satellites drift past while camping.  

He died from a very long battle with cancer almost three years ago, and my deepest regret was that I never told him how much he meant to me, and how he had impacted my life.

In my very weak defence, it truly wasn't until he passed away that I had noticed that impact and how hard it was to have lost him, even after having not seen him much since I had left the Yukon.  

It took me some time, and perspective, as I worked through my own issues like the anxiety, diabetes and, most recently, the ADHD, to fully comprehend how important it is to tell people how much they mean to me.  

I also have learned that in talking to people, as long as you give your opinion from a place of love or concern, they are often receptive to accepting your own opinions as such, even if they don't want to accept it.  I believe in saying something if you feel like someone you like or love is in danger.  I can't imagine living with the regret of not saying how I felt about a situation, and if my words could have made a difference, only to see that situation turn bad.  

I believe very strongly in telling people how they have affected my life in positive ways.  I think that a person deserves to know that they have touched a life deeply, however fleeting the contact with me has been.  I've been blessed to have had moments where a person has spent just a few hours or days in my life and they have left an impression.  I've had teachers, friends, acquaintances and even passing conversations in a store, affect my life in a way that I feel like it's necessary to tell them how they have affected me.  

I don't ever mean to make someone uncomfortable with my expressions of thanks.  I deeply and wholeheartedly mean what I say to someone when it comes to my sentiments.  I certainly hope that the people who I do thank for their parts in shaping me take it as true thanks, not lipservice.  

I'm open to everyone.  As long as you treat me with respect and dignity, I will most certainly do the same.  I want to listen to your beliefs, I want to understand your culture if it differs from mine.  I love family histories and learning about a person's past and how it's shaped them.  I know my own past, which has some very negative elements, has shaped me.  And in its shaping of me, has helped me recognize my own strengths and weaknesses.  It has helped me grow as a person and use each experience in my life shape who I am today.  I refuse to take the negative things in my life, and use them for negative purposes.  I will continue to do this, and in doing so, will change over my lifetime.

And so, in my deepest regret, I was able to learn a lesson that has made it easier for me to express how people who have passed through my life have affected me and helped me grow as a person.  Some of the changes have been small, fleeting, but left a mark.  Others have been profound and left me utterly changed.  

To anyone who has left a mark in my life, helped guide me, comfort me, lift me up and push me along, I thank you.