Let Them Know They Matter

I’ve been thinking of my dad a lot in the past week. He would have turned 81 this year. My dad had a certain “je ne sais quoi” - I love this French term for “a quality that cannot be described or named easily”.

People loved my dad and just wanted to be around him. I remember arriving at his hospital room one afternoon as a man I didn’t know was leaving. I asked who he was and my dad said, a bit mystified, “He’s a customer of mine. I’m so surprised that he stopped by to see me.”

If you knew my dad, you would understand. Everyone wanted to just be in his presence. With no agenda. Just BE with him. You felt better when you were around him.

One man said to me at his funeral “Tom would have described himself as just an ordinary man. He was anything but.”

My cousin/friends David & Rylin Rodgers wrote a beautiful tribute to him in the Lebanon Reporter. They said “Tom made you feel like you were the most important person in the world. Like you were a part of something greater. You knew you mattered.”

That was his magic. I don’t know how he did it. I’m certain he didn’t know he did anything special. But it was THE MOST special thing that anyone can do. He reminded so many of us that we matter.

What a gift it was to be his daughter.

I’ve been thinking about how we can all do that for people. Whether it comes easy to you or not, what an amazing gift to give people this holiday season – to let them know they matter. With your undivided attention and interest, help them feel like they are the most important person in the world at that moment.

Happy Thanksgiving week!