Last night, a grannie client - 94 years old, facing the challenges of dementia - gave me one of the two greatest compliments of my life. Like the first, my greatest hope is to always live up to it.
The first best compliment ever was given at either Cairnwood's Hearts & Hops shindig or its wine tasting party.
John was off talking to a couple friends, over by the entrance. I was standing just outside the music room, talking to some considerably younger women. One of them was vaguely familiar - suddenly realized her as someone I'd babywatched back in my late teens, didn't know well, hadn't seen in probably 30+ years. As we started talking, I said, "I'm Deev. Aka Elsa Lockhart, in my younger years."
The young woman beamed back at me & replied, "Oh, Miss Elsa, I certainly remember you! You babysat us. And you taught me in high school!"
Although I remembered babysitting her family, it never occurred to me she would have any memories of me - she was a very little girl. As for teaching - when did I teach high school? Then, it hit me - "Where you in the history class I subbed for a week? When I started to faint during a lecture?"
"YES! That was the class!" she said, with an even bigger smile. "You treated us the same when you taught us as you did when you babysat." And she left it at that!
Well, that was too tantalizing to leave dangling. "That's too intriguing not to ask - in what way."
And she said 3 words that changed my life, right on the spot - "You engaged us."
Can see it all - standing in that beautiful space, part of a larger group yet the two of us set aside within moments of time. And I was hearing a young woman's truth about me & it was beyond... There were no words for how it made me feel. But I can tell you that it would trigger the motto for my true north purpose - engage energize empower.
It never occurred to me that there could ever be a compliment that could stand shoulder to shoulder with those amazing few words. Until last night.
John & I had gone to visit a grannie client. She loves to do something special on Friday nights, the night she remembers from decades past as filled with fun & friends, especially with her much missed O Best Beloved. We were tagging up in her senior care community, taking her downstairs for a dish of ice cream - vanilla with chocolate sauce - then back upstairs to watch Tony Bennett LIVE in San Francisco on the Activity Room's BIG monitor.
As we were about to head out of her apartment, into the hallway, she looked me straight in the eyes & said, with the most beautiful smile, "You bring happiness."
Again, there were no words for how that made me feel. But it sure set me back on my heels, as I've been pondering for the past week the importance of happiness on ALL of us, at how often we youngers aren't even aware of all the instances & opportunities we have to feel happy, at how meager that precious commodity can become as we get significantly older.
Happiness has been uppermost in my mind all week & here was a beloved older friend saying that I bring it.
It that's not a match to fire up my determination to DO more to help more experience more happiness... Well, don't know what could be!
May Anne's words trigger as much - more! - insight & activity as those simple earlier words, "You engaged us." Make it so.
Credits:
thefunktiononline.com
brynathynchurch.org
engagelocal.org
futureblue.wordpress.com
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