‘When I’m gone no-one will miss me, no-one will remember that I existed.’ I heard this recently and thought it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.
In life we can be so busy rushing round and working hard that we miss the chance to stop and smell the flowers, watch out the window at the storm, spend time with people.
When I was 19 or 20 I went on a holiday to Venice, I remember it so well because we paid £99 each for half board for a week. We found the deal on teletext, that’s showing my age. When we got there it was the last week of the season and people had been relocated to the hotel which was dated and old but they had paid 3 or 4 times what we had paid. I felt sorry for the rep getting constant complaints and when she asked us I said she shower was very bad but it was ok. She told us to go on a lovely meal and bring her the bill and she’d pay for it. We spent over £100 on that meal and then worried all the way home in case it was too much and we’d blown all our spending money, She paid us back and we used the money to go on a trip the a vineyard.
Everyone was there in pairs and the was a slightly eccentric older man there on his own. I recall that one couple was making fun of him a little and I felt uncomfortable. The trip included a meal and of course wine and as he had a few glasses of wine people were asking him questions and he reluctantly replied. He had lost his wife recently and they had been to Venice on Honeymoon and he wanted to come back to remember her. There was such as sadness in him that I left the table and sat by the stream and shed a tear. His loss was palatable.
I think about people often, and little things I’d like to do but life gets in the way and I don’t do it. Then it becomes to late. And people can pass it off and say it’s understandable, you’ve got the kids, but when people show me small acts of kindness it stick out so much that this year i wan to pass it on.