Speak to them as if it’s their Eulogy

By: Samantha S. Daviss

Genuine people are a rare breed. They are the ones that tell you they love you no matter what, but more importantly they are the ones that tell you how they feel about you or how you make them feel at any given moment of the day.

I was recently blessed with a new friend in my life. I can’t even tell you where or how our friendship grew, they are just one of these people that I met and we instantly connected. Now we don’t check each other’s every move, or text or chat every single day, in fact they recently went on a trip and I had no idea they were going. But to me that doesn’t measure our level or the intensity of our friendship, the intensity of our friendship is measured by the passion we share for each other’s well-being. And I know I have truly found that in this new friend. If we don’t talk or see each other for a few days we always send a friendly text just to say hi or check in with the other person.

But the thing that brings me closest to this person is their genuine heart and ability to truly be in touch with their emotions, and to say what is on their mind. In fact just the other day they were dropping something off at my office for me and right after they pulled away I received a text that said, “I loved seeing your smiling face, it always makes my day.” Now those aren’t earth shattering words, but they are words of truth and full of emotion, and I knew the moment I read them that this person truly felt that way about seeing my face and my smile at that particular given moment in their life.

Maybe they were having a bad day, maybe they were lost in other thoughts and my smile pulled them back to reality, or maybe it was truly just as simple as needing to see a smiling face. Whatever the case may be I love the fact that my friend said exactly what was on their mind at that moment in time. So this prods me to ask the question, why don’t we all speak to each other in this manner? Why don’t we all speak to one another as if we are never going to see them again? And why can’t our love and devotion to that person be presented as well and as genuinely as we do when we are giving the eulogy of the dearly departed?

It is very thoughtful and considerate of us to speak kindly of the deceased, but what good is it doing them? Did they know that their smile lit up your life? Did they know that hearing their voice on the other end of the phone one cloudy day stopped you from making a really bad decision? Or did they know that they truly are just a fantastically dear friend or loved one to you?

If they don’t then you should liberate yourself enough to feel comfortable enough to say it to them. Let them know in the here and now how you really feel. You have no idea what impact it will make on that person for the rest of their life just hearing some simple kind words.

I don’t know why we have become such a guarded society of our emotions and thoughts. You know my mom said something to me a long time ago when I first became a mother, she told me she envied me for how I spoke to my son. And so I begged the question what she meant. She told me that I always told him I loved him and I always told him I was proud of him, from the simplest accomplishment like holding a fork when he was a baby to learning his ABCs. And she proceeded to tell me that she regretted not saying those things enough to myself and my brother. (Although I think she did a great job as a mom). But her point being was that she didn’t tell us enough exactly what she thought or felt.

So there again, why is it so hard for society to tell each other exactly how we feel about one another? There isn’t a chance that goes by that I don’t tell my friends or my family that I love them, they are my world, or hug or kiss them goodbye. I don’t mean this in any morbid context, like “we could die at any moment”. Well of course we can, we all know that. What I mean is let those in your life enjoy the kind words that you are thinking or feeling while they are still around you, not while you are reading those words to a depressed sanctuary of grievers there to pay their last respects.

Live in the now, think in the now, and speak in the now…let them know and hear the love that is in your heart and mind.