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The miracle that is Medinah
The American writer and poet Maya Angelou once said: "At the end of the day people won't remember what you say or did, they will remember how you made them feel."
I pondered her words recently when I saw someone from my home town I hadn't met in nearly 50 years. He was at the same social occasion I'd travelled home to attend. As soon as I saw him, I was transported back to that day in his parents' shop, when I was eight years old and he was in his late teens.
We were often sent as children to that shop, it was the nearest to our house and my mother had a bill there, which was the custom of the time. She'd send my sister and I there every Friday to settle up. Then it'd begin over, us getting grocery items 'put down' on the bill for the rest of the week.
I was dispatched that day to get milk and bread. My mother, in generous mood, gave me a couple of pennies to buy sweets. There were a number of people inside the small shop that day. It was a place where the grown ups lingered to exchange local news. That day instead of one or other of the parents, their eldest son was serving. He wasn't often there, he was away at college most of the time. I waited my turn then, when he'd handed me the milk and bread over the counter, asked for two pennies worth of 'taffy'. It's what we all called the sweet treat at home at the time, adults and children alike.
'Taffy' he repeated looking at me. "Taffy? We have no such thing. Is it toffee you want? Is it? In that case you'll have to say it correctly." All heads were turned in my direction. I wanted to curl up and die. I was stuck to the ground with embarrasment. "Toffee" I murmured, just wanting to get out of the shop. He made me repeat it, twice more, until he was satisfied with my pronouncination and handed it over. I mumbled my thanks and fled from the shop before he took umbrage over something else.
I was overwhelmed by my feelings on the way home. My treat forgotten, all I could think of was the shame he'd subjected me to. I berated myself for answering him at all. Why didn't I just leave? Why had I let him humiliate me like that?
I looked at that man, now in his '70s, and hoped that, in those intervening years, he learned some humility of his own. I wondered if his college education had taught him better manners. He was oblivious to me, certainly not remembering, I'm sure, the day he'd seen fit to mortify a small child in front of the adults. I wondered too if he'd ever discovered that I wasn't wrong, after all, in saying 'taffy', a word the Oxford English dictionary defines as "A sweet similar to toffee, made from brown sugar or treacle, boiled with butter and pulled until glossy."
I still feel slighted, remembering that incident all these years later. Or rather remembering how it made me feel.
The 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy garnered much media attention during the week and sparked the inevitable 'where I was when I heard the news' recollections. I remember that day clearly. My mother was a big fan of the president with the film star looks and Irish roots. Our next door neighbour called her out to the back garden. When she came in she was crying. My aunt was in our house at the time. My mother told her that President Kennedy had been shot. My sister and I were six years old. We didn't understand what was going on. I knew only that my mother was upset enough to be in tears and my abiding memory is of the strange sensation of seeing a woman, not normally given to shows of emotion, being so obviously distressed. It was so disconcerting, as if an axis somewhere had shifted with that rare display of vulnerability.
A couple of years ago, an elderly relative of mine, a cousin of my father's, died. At the funeral his sons and daughter approached me and thanked me for taking the time to visit him in the nursing home that had been his residence before his death. Truth be told, I used to get as much pleasure out of my visits as he did, because he told a great yarn and his keen mind gave up memories of very many adventures. Often I'd just sit and listen, other times I'd read the paper to him and listen to his opinion on the way the world was headed.
On one visit, he grasped my hand, telling me he wouldn't see me again. The end was coming, he confided. He wasn't at all upset or afraid. Instead he was looking forward to meeting up again with his beloved wife who'd passed away seven years before. In that moment, he gave me an insight into the value of faith that I had never before gained in all the time I'd sat in churches over the years. He died a few days later. I was pleased that his sons and daughter felt my visits to their dad had been worthwhile and touched by their gratitude.
A media colleague a number of years my senior and far more accomplished professionally paid me a compliment recently on something I'd written. Knowing him to be a most genuine individual and one who doesn't dole out plaudits lightly, I was chuffed. I even managed to be gracious, thanking him sincerely and waiting until he was out of sight before practically skipping down the street in elation.
Actually I'm pretty good at dishing out compliments myself. I do it instinctively, when I meet someone if they're looking good or wearing something that looks well on them. I also commend people on their accomplishments, good deeds and anything else I think warrants it. I think it's a nice trait to have and makes people feel good. Provided it doesn't tip over into fawning obsequiousness, that is. Insincere flattery dilutes the whole ethos.
I've a friend, for example, who always tells me I look "marvellous" or "stunning" or "amazing". I met her last year after I'd suffered a bout of fairly serious illness. I definitely looked what my mother used to call "peaky", i.e. white-faced and washed out looking. My hair was stuck to my head and I looked like the Michelin man I was wearing so many layers to ward off attack from any further 'flu type bugs'. "Wow, you look fabulous!" she greeted me in that effusive manner of hers. I'd have laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it, if I'd been able to muster that much effort.
We're all susceptible to flattery, it's human nature. And, I suppose, if the words of Maya Angelou are true, and it's how you make people feel that they remember, then it can only be good.
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