mimk6

Well, almost everyone here, myself included, thinks they live a small life. But let me share something that happened to me last week that gave me pause. I run the parent organization at my son's school. Last week, at a meeting, a parent gave me a small gift -- I was surprised and touched. I wrote her a thank you note and she responded about how much she appreciates what I do and how she tells everyone about me, etc. I have to say, it felt really nice, mostly because it was so unexpected. But, my point is, I had no idea. No idea that any of these parents gave me a second thought once they left a meeting or finished reading our newsletter. I hope they benefit from my efforts, but I had no idea they had any real feelings or would take the time to express them. And, of course, maybe she's the only one (although, funnily enough, another parent who is a friend gave me a small gift that night because I helped her out with something -- this has never, ever happened to me in this capacity, let alone twice in one night.) So who knows? Maybe we are all just doing what we do, because we are the kind of people who just do what we think needs to be done, and maybe people will take more notice than we think once we are gone. Mostly, I'd be willing to bet, that the only people we really care about, in terms of how we are remembered, are our children. If they think well of me when I'm gone, that's more than enough for me. The rest is gravy.

scualum

mimk6:

Your note here in someways echos my thoughts as I read this thread- many of us touch others in ways that we don't know - but why not? It's because so often in today's society no one takes the time to say thank you.

So my resolution is to say a meaningful thank you to at least one person a day for the month of November... Join me!!!

Delicate Arch

Scualum, I'm in on the November project. Great idea.

worknprogress

Scualum - great idea. It doesn't cost a thing to let someone know that you appreciate them. What a way to lead into Thanksgiving.

scualum

Just did today's gratitude. We have a new admin in the office who has been doing a great job - making all of our lives so much easier. I've been meaning to say something - so I picked up the phone and called her to say thank you.

I don't want to take this thread down a tangent - shall we open a gratitude thread?

Karen Colleges

Nice idea. I'm in.

I used to be more gracious. Wrote letters to the grade 4 class, thanking them for organizing such an interesting Egypt museum. One to grade 2 about a lovely play they put on. To the elementary music teacher after the holiday concert, and I used to write thank you notes to all of the kids teachers at the end of the school year.

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't written that kind of a thank you note in several years. However, I do stick my head into the principal's office every now and again to tell her that the GC is doing a great job, or how much we enjoyed one of the school celebrations. But I should be writing them....

milkandsugar

This is a wonderful thread. It is something that I have thought about many times over the years. What is small? My dear young brother lived a small life, was not able to participate in sports, had a very small circle of friends. When he died at the age of 22 suddenly, My family was stunned at the number of people that attended his services. Hundreds of people we never met before. Aquaintances at his workplace that just met him, fellow classmates from NYU, So many young men that were apart of his fragternity from other chapters came an wanted to be pall bearers. The stories they recanted gave my parents such pride that a person who only was here on earth for such a short time meant so much to so many, that was 25 yrs ago.
On the other hand, my mother in law died 4 yrs ago and there were not even a handful of people at her funeral, mostly my family and my husband colleagues from work. The difference was she lived a small life but was pretty much antisocial and didn't get involved in anything but her own things.
So really the question is, what is small?

lololu

Just want to say thank you to the OP. I posted early this morning (#25) and then spent most of the day thinking of my father who died over twenty years ago. As I was making dinner tonight I realized that today is All Souls Day. I am very happy to thought of my dad so much today and the way he touched our lives.

Kei-o-lei

not a large life: no national honors, aspirations, career

but a good small life: active in my community, giving of my time as a community volunteer and doing appointed/elected Town positions

my funeral will be small because I can be an off-putting jerk; lots of aquaintances/few friends, but I am working hard to be a better human, so there's still time to gain attendance :-)

the most important thing that will live on after me is my example for my kids that even when you're flawed you can choose to be a better person, then work on it

there are other things I've done that I feel good about - getting the new middle school built; co-founding a small music school in Town - but those things are small compared to living a good loving example for my kids

Kei

wis75

Refreshing to hear others are leading "small" lives. My world has shrunk since son gone, we don't belong to social clubs, including a church. One factor in funeral attendance- your spouse. A lot of people here would attend mine out of feelings for my H. Once we move there won't be anyone around us to care. Skipped a young adult visitation, know parent a bit and knew there would be a lot of people there. I hate funerals.

owlice

Here is something I wrote a couple or three years ago (<-- please notice that! Thanks!) that seems to fit a bit on this thread (pardon my self-indulgence):

I often think about the effect that others have on me, and how impossible it is for me to know the effect I have on others. I've mused on this since high school, since a fellow student, someone I didn't know well, wrote something in my yearbook about my impact on him. I had no idea, and have puzzled over this since. (I wrote something completely banal in his yearbook, I'm sure, for I knew his name but other than his being in my psych class senior year, he pretty much escaped my notice. How sad is that? For me, I mean, that I didn't know him at all.)

You don't know what you mean to people, what gestures you've made, comments you've made, have had an effect on others. None of us know; we can't possibly. We can know some, I suppose, but I think the vast majority of our impact is mostly unknown to us.

TheGFG

Thanks so much, missypie. I think about this a lot, and now I know I'm not alone! Thank goodness. However, I would venture a guess that if I were to look at many of you, I would disagree with your assessments of yourselves since I don't know more than one person with a smaller circle of relationships than mine. Some of that has been for the reasons cited by other posters. First, we've moved around. A good number of the folks I went to high school with still live in or very near the same town they grew up in. Their kids are now friends, and so the cycle continues! This is not how my life has been, and my neighborhood has been transitory. Second, none of my husband's family live within 1000 miles of us, so we don't see them or get invited to their family events. My extended family is out of state but "small" also. Some of that is less a size issue and more a connectedness thing stemming from the fact that my mom hated my dad's side of the family so I never got a chance to become close to them.

My spouse is a loner who works from home, so he doesn't help make any couple friends. I'm still a SAHM, whereas all those friends I made when my firstborn was in elementary school (eg. through soccer, Boy Scouts, etc.) have all gone back to work. We just don't see each other anymore, though sometimes I'll call them. They don't call me. One reason I'm still at home is that my youngest child has special needs. She is still socially immature and socially different, and thus does not have many friends (maybe none), so I have not met a new cohort of parents through her life. What's very painful too is that recently we've had to leave two churches when the preaching went south of good doctrine. It is next to impossible to maintain those friendships because of all the emotions involved when people part ways over religious differences. But we just had to leave the last church when the pastor embarked on an anti-intellectual stint and starting picking on the Ivies in particular, and higher education in general as destructive to faith. It just wasn't good for my kids since S attends an Ivy, and D will next year. The last straw was when my youngest came home from Sunday School and was really worried about the spiritual condition of her brother since he was at college and "kids stop believing in God in college."

Lately the small life feeling has been depressing me quite a bit. But you all make some good points about how the numbers can be deceiving. My sister passed away a few years ago, and it seems she was extremely well-loved by those around her. Lots of people came to the memorial service. But here's the funny thing: my younger sister and I never felt like she knew us or cared about us. She'd be the kind of person to send a birthday card to her former hairdresser in her home town, but not to her own family. Also, after so many people told stories of how she had baked for them, my nephew got up and said, joking, "I want you all to know that while my mom was baking for all of you she wasn't cooking for us." That struck me as sad. My mom has some of the same tendencies. She will invite over random little girls to bake with her now and yet never baked with us or her grandchildren. You see, doing those things for strangers or non-family members brings more recognition and appreciation. Where's the glory in doing nice things for your own family? Heck, you're supposed to do that!

fendrock

Put me in the "small life" category.

I think the American Way is to have the big funeral, and the tendency is to feel that something is wrong with you if you are not a big life person.

I've always wondered why I have so few friends. I came back to the United States for college after living in a third world country for all of high school, so maybe I don't know how to fit in and pick up on the social cues necessary to join the social whirl.

But now I've concluded that I, at root, am not that social. Someone said recently that she is a "content" person when it comes to friendships, and I am the same way. I like to discuss issues (one reason I like CC!) and this is not everyone's cup of tea when it comes to hanging out with friends.

Maybe it is similar to the difference of experience between those who have large families and those who have small ones. Both are happy in their own way, but the nature of the relationship to, and the experience of, your children is different if you have one or two or if you are the Duggars.

Jolynne Smyth

^^ I would tend to agree w/this! And, not saying you shouldn't do for others & the broader world (I noticed my daughter was becoming a little materialistic and self-centered, at age 8, and decided this week-end we both would do 1 thing each day for those less fortunate). But, when you think about it -- who has the kind of influence such that the person you influence will be impacted by your values, comments, criticisms, attitude and support every day, for their entire lives? Parents do. I know my parents' values are reflected in my actions every day.

I think it was Jackie O who said (quoting Carlyle): "do the duty nearest to you" -- and for her, that was raising her children (despite her fame, etc.). I think she also said--do it wrong, and nothing else matters. I've often thought of that.

FallGirl

Count me in, too.

Along the way I have occasionally received an unexpected thank you and I still remember those kind words years later. It time to pass it on.