Watching you 8/21/21

 8/21/21

August 21st,2

There is someone who is watching you. They take note of everything about you...How you walk, how you hold your body when you are in conversation, the manner that a smile breaks out across your face. They know the style you dress and the shows you won't watch. They could pick your laugh out of a thousand others, and they know the jokes you laugh at and the ones you don't.

They note the tone, and inflection in your voice when you talk to a tired waitress who just got your order wrong or a coworker who is considering some very risky behavior as they say they can no longer deal with life being, "one dead end after another". They watched as you have extended your hand to a stranger and when you chose not to. They listened as you chose silence in response to a barrage of ill-chosen words by someone who just needed a listening ear. In fact they think a lot about how you listen – with patience, and total attention.

I know, you think I talking about some little kid who just adores you from afar, don't you?

I'm not. There are individuals younger than you, the same age as you, and even folks older than you, who find in you what they have never been able to find in themselves. Maybe it was the un-luck of the cards they were dealt, maybe they just got off to a poor start, maybe they made some very foolish and unwise decisions early on. Maybe they too soon gave up on a damaged but salvageable marriage and have lived with that regret for decades. Maybe their life came with no instruction manual and they had to learn to fly on their own. There a tiredness that comes with knowing in their heart they still don't have their act together.

To someone you are their make-believe big sister they never had, or a mom that really cared, or a brother who thought you were pretty cool, or a father who thought you were really important to him. And there's a few that you are all they have that is good.

I suspect you are pretty much oblivious to this, and deny it holds much truth, saying, "You just do what needs doing, and you say what needs said. Other than that, you keep your opinions to yourself and try not to leave people in worst shape than you found them." " Act out of kindness, be generous with you time as well as your money. Lastly, share your blessings".

This is based on a true event in my life. In the mid 1970's a soldier who was serving in Vietnam with my older brother, looked me up while on leave to give me a camera my older brother had gotten for me. He ended up giving up a night on the town as he helped me cram for a very important Algebra exam until the wee hours of the morn. Just before I left to take the exam, he changed the subject and gave me the advice pretty much as I have written it above, His last words were, "Remember, there is some out there who wants to be exactly like you."

13Diana Melton Yarian, Beth A Yoder and 11 others

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