A Purpose For Everyone You Meet

I read this today on a friend’s Facebook. I do not know who wrote it. It is beautiful. In life you will realize that There is a purpose for everyone you meet Some will test you and some will teach you But most important are the ones who bring out the best in you Respect you and accept you for who you are. Those are the ones worth keeping around I have always tried to feel this way about friends and relatives. I have written in most of my articles that we should be around people who lift us up and we do the same for them. The ones who criticize, we should let alone. I wrote the criticize article just last night and it is posted now before I read this little message. Roger Staubach said “there are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” We must all go the extra mile in everything we do. Even as a child, I always tried extra hard to do the right thing and to take the education I was receiving with the grace it was given. I went into the junior high period as it was called then and is now called middle school with the attitude that I was blessed to be chosen to go to an accelerated one. At this school called Robert E. Lee Junior High # 49 and shortened to #49 by all the students, we accomplished three years of work into two years. You were chosen to go there and truly it was an honor to be accepted there as a student. They reviewed your grade marks and only had a certain amount to have room for the attendance in that school. The school was an old dilapidated building and it was illuminated by the students who were so happy to be there in this extremely intelligent environment of great educational possibilities. Abraham Lincoln said “whatever you are, be a good one.” We should all try to be a good one in most everything we are involved in. If it is your education, your job, your home life, your family, your spouse, your parents and most of all yourself, try being a good one. Those words are simple in writing but can mean a great deal to your own being and to others that surround you. When I had a housekeeper who worked for me for over thirty years until she retired; she would never lie. In those days, we had no answering machines that we have now and we can screen our calls if we do not want to talk to a particular person at that moment they call. She would answer my phone and would not say that I was not there. She would do anything I asked of her, she would not lie, even a white lie. I admired her for her beliefs and one day at her home downtown in not so nice a neighborhood, she finally had to lie. Someone was shot in her housing development and the police came to interview each and every neighbor asking could they describe the shooter. She saw it very clearly from her home; for the first time since I had known her, she told them no. She was afraid of retaliation because it was a neighborhood occupant and she recognized him very well. She told me about the incident and she was in tears because she had lied and also because she wanted to protect herself since she lived alone and she felt she had let down the police departmen I tried to console her and told her she had to do what was right for her and being alone, she had only herself to look out for her own life and health. She was as President Lincoln said way back then a good one and this one time, she had to choose between being good to herself or being good to the community by identifying the shooter. I think she chose the right way at that moment. Sometimes, decisions are hard to make and we all try to choose the proper one at that time. If it comes to our own safety, that is a personal determination and you could say a ‘roll of the dice.’ Bringing out the best in our self or trying to do it for someone else is a fine attribute to have. We want to have friends and family who can learn from us and we can learn from them. All the learning and caring helps us all to be finer and more giving people. When I was about twelve, mother and I use to walk around the neighborhood to a cousin of Mom’s who just moved in at that time. His name was Albert and his wife was Minnie and they had three children. The two boys were about twelve and seven and a baby girl came along named Ethel and it was a very sweet and religious family. Mom and I would go there some Friday nights and it was the Sabbath and they celebrated it every week. The minute we walked into the living room, Albert offered us food and we wanted to say no because we had already eaten our big dinner. He seemed to get insulted if we did not partake of even a dessert; so Mom and I took a few bites to satisfy him. He liked to be the person who enjoyed your company and he must have thought that if we ate something, we found it more pleasant. We enjoyed the company of the five of them and we did not need to eat, but we did to please him. He was a nice and dear man and so was the rest of the family. Last year, I made acquaintance again of the younger son because I read in our Sunpapers an Op-Ed article he wrote. I emailed him at the address he had at the end of the article and I told him how I remembered things about him and his family. At that time, I was about five years older than him and I was enamored with his cuteness, his politeness and having a young cousin. My other cousins were all my age or older, so it was novel for me to know this little boy. He is now a PhD and a grandfather and the years rolled by and it was about fifty years since we had seen each other. We are going to try one day to get together at this late and senior time of our life. My memories of his dad, mom and siblings are what you would call good ones and nice to reflect about with him, over the email now and then. He lives in the D.C. area; so maybe, sometime in the future we shall meet again. There are good people, good times, good memories and good days. It is nice to remember the good people, the good times and these are all our fondest, benevolent, kind and wonderful thoughts in our mind of the past. Mencius said “benevolence is one of the distinguishing characteristics of man and woman. It is the path of duty.” Let us have our duty be a responsibility to our family, friends and neighbors whenever we can and hopefully fill our lives with being happier people while doing this. In life, you realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Make that purpose happen now and remember that the ones who bring out the best in you, respect you and you them, are the ones worth keeping around and by you. Never let them go.