Just Behind the Door

Who have you given a compliment to lately or listened to with both your head and heart as they were sharing a concern? Sounds like a trick question doesn’t it? It’s not meant to be, but it is meant to get us all thinking about our need to pass on a ‘thumbs up, I care about you or thank you’ kind of communique.

We seem to be living at light speed. Trying to get more and more done yet we look at our list for tomorrow and it seems longer than today’s. It’s exhausting just thinking about it. And yet…there is always a nagging thought about someone you meant to thank or someone you meant to reconnect with but the time just slipped away. Maybe tomorrow…maybe…but who knows if tomorrow will ever come. Something to think about and act upon when the thought comes to us.

The lyrics to the song, The Living Years, by Mike & The Mechanics reflect on the feelings of missed opportunities to communicate and understand what our loved ones are saying. A few of the lines are:

Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got
You say you just don’t see it
He says it’s perfect sense
You just can’t get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defense
So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
It’s the bitterness that lasts

The refrain, You can listen as well as you hear… I just wish I could have told him in the living years.

Some of us believe you can still communicate with our loved ones after they have passed on. I have had too many experiences that I shared in my book, Just Behind the Door, to question that reality. However, it is still important to remember that a missed opportunity is just that – missed- in never being able to do it again in that same way or same time.

Maybe each of us could set a goal to take 5 minutes over the next few days and reconnect with someone that we have been thinking about lately. Who knows we might have a new perspective from the connection and bring a little joy into both lives.

Have a great few days!