I have to share with you an interesting and sweet thing that happen not once but three times.  Both my parents are now deceased, my dad died four years ago at a tender age of 79 and my mom has been gone 24 years.  As many who lost parents you can attest to the times when people mention them in passing, it touches your heart in a warm and fuzzy way.

Yesterday, as I was leaving a meeting, Ken a friend of my late mom's said how much he missed my mother.  They collaborated on so many things to do with local education and local politics.  Ken bowed his a head a bit and shook it back and forth, only enough for me to see his eyes, then he looked up and said "I really mean that, I think about your mother often and really miss her.  If she were alive, things would have turned out so differently."  True in the most logical sense but he meant differently.  He looked at the other person in the meeting and said "her mom had guts, she was truly fearless."   

Before Ken, I bumped into another friend of my mom's, Wilma.  My son and I dropped in her eclectic shop a combination of:  DVD rentals, internet cafe, bead europium, a coffee lounge, seamstress and custom sewing.  We got to talking about her shop and she blurted right out to me that she was thinking of my mother that very day.  I could understand the politeness of her remark but my mom has been gone  for 24 years, it's not like the grief is fresh.  She said how much she missed my mom and how different things would have turned out if she lived.  It is heart warming to hear that.  

But I am not finished, the other day I received a Facebook message from a relative about my dad.  It took me by surprise and that's why I will share it.  My relative was showing her mom her Facebook page and came across a photo of my dad and she choked up.  My dad and her grew up together and were very close, she always considered him like a brother.  She went on to say kind things about my dad that touched me so sweetly.  And so the theme of my week goes, I bumped into her over dinner last night.  She talked about my dad some more, she misses him too.  

That being said, I forget sometimes the impact we have on other people and the lasting memories our lives leave behind.  So today, take a moment to recall pleasant memories of those we love.  Just a thought.