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. As the students
left the room, each one handed in the papers. That Saturday, the
teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of
paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.
The students were happy with themselves and one another.
‘I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!’ and, ‘I didn’t know
others liked me so much,’ where most of the comments. The students
were happy with themselves and one another.
Several years later, one of the students was killed in a military activity
and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had
never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so
handsome, so mature. The ground 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 walk past.
As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up
to her. ‘Were you Karin’s math teacher?’ he asked.
She nodded: ‘yes.’ Then he said: ‘Karim talked about you a lot.’ After
the funeral, most of Karim’s former classmates went together to a
luncheon. Karim’s mother and father were there, obviously waiting to
speak with his teacher. ‘We want to show you something,’ his father
said, taking a wallet out of his pocket ‘They found this on Karim 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
knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had
listed all the good things each of Karim’s classmates had said about
him. ‘Thank you so much for doing that,’ Karim’s mother said. ‘As you
can see, Karim treasured it.’ All of Karim’s former classmates started to
gather around. They said they all have that piece of paper as a
memento.
That’s when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Karim
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.
