A Little Encouragement Goes A Long Way

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down under their names.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in their paper.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate piece of paper and listed on each student's paper what the classmates had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and "I didn't know others liked me so much." were some of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished it's purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of those students was killed in Viet Nam and the teacher attended the funeral. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as a pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. She nodded "yes". Then he said "Mark talked about you a lot."

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon and the teacher also went. Mark's mother and father were there and waited to speak to the teacher. "We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher realized right away that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things that each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

"Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said, "as you can see, Mark treasured it."
All of Marks' former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home." Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album." "I have mine too," Marilyn said, "it's in my diary."

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we all saved our lists." That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day and we don't know when that one day will be.

So please tell the people you love and care for that they are special and important. Tell them before it is too late. Don't pass up wonderful opportunities to say or do something nice, or beautiful, to or for the people around you.