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If you’re an 8-year-old son in a
family who has just welcomed a new baby and you’re impressed with the meal she made
to help out your mom, you dig into the Butterfingers Delight for a second
helping and exclaim, “This should be called ‘Hallelujah Dessert’!”
If you’re a young lady from her
church and you’re taking part in the feet-washing aspect of a Communion Sunday
service for the first time and she offers to partner with you at the water
basin, you accept. When it is your turn to kneel and “gird the towel” for her,
your glance takes in her skinny toes and cracked heels, but you look up and
tell her, “I don’t know if anyone ever told you this before, but you have
beautiful feet.”
If you’re her dad, and on her
birthday you’re far away from her home and away from your own home at a church
function, you take a break after lunch and go for a bit of a walk away from the
noise and bustle of the event so you can phone her. In the conversation, you
reminisce about the day she was born (It was just as brilliantly sunny as this
day is, and you were so excited about being dad for the first time – to TWO
baby girls – that you could hardly keep your feet on the ground) and ask her the
familiar questions such as “Are you doing anything special to celebrate?” and
then just before ending the call, you gather up your fatherly affection and
advice and affirmation and roll it into one heartfelt statement: “Love you,
Daughter.”
If she’s not your mom
biologically or otherwisely, (after all, you’re old enough to be her
mom) but she has mothered you in kind of a roundabout way, you send her a card
and/or call her to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. With genuine pleasure you
enter into the joy of her family gathering ‘round and rising up to call her
blessed. (This in spite of your personal never-to-be-fulfilled longing to have
your own children and grandchildren.)
If you’re a peer of hers who
knows your way around in the areas of food, art, politics, and nearly
everything else better than she does, you enjoy hanging out with her anyway.
When you ride with her to a ladies’ party at a restaurant in town, and she’s
maneuvering the route in the city rather confidently, you declare, “You drive
these back streets like a pro!”
If you notice her love of
photography and you’re a noticer of beauty/lover of creativity yourself, you
send her a note including the words “…thank you so much for faithfully taking
and sharing your beautiful photos. It’s not listed as a spiritual gift, it
certainly seems akin to being one, in my opinion. To realize the beauty of
little moments and scenes, and then to be willing to pause and be present
enough to take a photo of them…”
If you wear titles such as Prolific
Writer of Books as well as The Ann Landers of MennoWorld, and you happen to
have a little “writery” tete-a-tete with her at a conference, you (in the midst
of your Opinions on a certain subject) listen to her piece of wisdom (that
she’s not even giving as such), and then you turn around and quote her in one
of your blog posts because her “What would you advise instead?” stinger of a
question would not stop buzzing in your head.
If you’re a reader (male or
female) of Dani’s Discoveries, you sometimes stop and tell her, when you see
her and she’s least expecting to hear it, that you read her blog. And you make
it sound like reading it is an enjoyable experience.
If you’re someone who has just
read this blog post, instead of thinking that wow, now there’s one 57-year-old
woman who is obsessed with affirmation, you acknowledge the impact of a word
fitly spoken. You decide that when something impresses you favorably about
someone, be they 7 or 57 or 97, you’ll take a moment to mention it to them in
sincerity. You realize that they could get all shy or inwardly spluttery about
it. (Pretty dress, what!? This ancient, faded, “pilly” thing? I wasn’t planning
to wear it to town, but I forgot to change before coming to McDonald’s!) But
you do it anyway, because you just might make their day. Or month. Or year.
