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When people claim they remember stuff about you..
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amother
Currant


 

Post Tue, Aug 30 2022, 9:18 am
amother OP wrote:
Wow! What a story!
Interestingly, I know a similar story of a "Sury" exactly like the one you described. The coolest girl in the class, "Dena," decided to befriend her, and changed her life. She started by teaching her about eating healthy. Sury lost weight and started feeling great about herself. Her terrible acne cleared up. Dena taught Sury how to use deodorant. She brought Sury into her own cirlce of friends. In time this "Sury" became like everyone else. She is long married now (yes, more than 20 years post high school) and AFAIk, is doing amazingly.

In fact, I am wondering if we are talking about the same Sury. If you are the friend who changed this girl's life, you may not remember it, but everyone else does. I can't tell you how many times I have thought of Dena over the years and how I imagine the reward awaiting her in the next world.


I dont think it's the same Sury we are talking about because I didn't go as far as teaching her all of the above you mentioned ( unless I don't remember that either lol).
It also never occured to me, up until now reading your post, that it may have been me who changed her. I rather linked it to the fact that she married very well.
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amother
OP


 

Post Tue, Aug 30 2022, 10:54 am
amother Currant wrote:
I dont think it's the same Sury we are talking about because I didn't go as far as teaching her all of the above you mentioned ( unless I don't remember that either lol).
It also never occured to me, up until now reading your post, that it may have been me who changed her. I rather linked it to the fact that she married very well.


I hear. Well, there may be lots of Surys around, girls who really needed a friend, someone to acknowledge them, and make them feel visible. And then one person reached out to them. You often have no idea how much you impact their lives because they usually never tell you.

So its probably not the same Sury, but you still have no idea how you impacted her life when you walked home with her every day. The proof is in the fact that she remembered it all those years later.

In fact, this reminds me of an incident I actually think of often.
When I was in 10th grade, my family went away for Pesach vacation. Many of the girls in my class wrote me "plane" letters. (Is that still a thing today?)
Once I was settled on the plane, I read all the letters. I don't remember any of them, obviously. Except for one, which gave me the chills reading it.

It was from a girl in my class named Chana Leah. Chane Leah and I were not exactly good friends, but she was friends with some of my friends. So I guess we were somewhat friendly.

She wrote that she has to tell me something important. She said that the previous year, she had just moved to town and joined our school. Although high school was new for everyone, most girls came with friends from their previous school. Only she knew no one. She felt alone and scared. Even in her previous school, she had a hard time making friends, and she didn't know how she would break into any group now. School started and a few of the nicer girls befriended her. But she was plagued with insecurities, never really knowing if she was accepted or not.
Towards the end of that year, after Pesach, all the girls came back from Pesach break. She said that one girl who had gone away for Pesach brought back small souvenirs for her friends. Chana Leah watched as the girl handed a cute pen to her circle of friends. She found herself wondering if she would also get one. She was not exactly friends with that girl, but they shared friends. So she wondered and watched. She knew she would feel crushed if she didn't get one, but at the same time, she wasn't really expecting one.

And then the girl approached her and gave her a pen- the same as all of her other friends. And that's when she knew that she had been accepted. It gave her the confidence a much needed boost. And now she wanted to write to thank me for what I did for her last year.

When I read that, I grew hot and cold at the same time. I felt terribly ashamed of myself. I had never gone out of my way to be nice to Chana Leah. She was just there...whenever a few of us were shmoozing, she was on the outskirts of the circle. I never took the time to realize how she must feel. I was friendly only as a default, because she was friends with some of my friends. I never made more of an effort than that. (Eventually we did become much better friends.)

And I actually clearly remembered the incident with the pens.
I was standing in the store choosing the souvenirs, counting how many to get. I remember debating whether or not I should get one for Chana Leah. She wasn't really my close friend, but she was always there....(it also didn't occur to me that by giving only a few girls gifts, I would be making others feel bad. )

In the end I got her a pen. I dont even know exactly why. And I would have totally forgotten the whole incident, except that a year later, she reminded me in a heartfelt letter .

It really brought home to me how a little gesture on my part can mean the world to another person. At the same time, I was ashamed that I hadn't done more.
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koalamum




 
 
    
 

Post Tue, Aug 30 2022, 11:20 am
OP!
From your first post I can truly believe that all those chassadim that you did were true. If you wouldn’t have written the story of the water bottle you gave your fellow driver, you would probably forget that too.
You seem to do the right thing at the right time but you are humble and don’t dwell on it. That’s why you forget. There are too many stories told by a variety of people to think they never happened.
My feeling is that you are an amazing person!
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amother
Coffee


 

Post Tue, Aug 30 2022, 1:48 pm
It's a heck of a lot better than people reminding you about stupid things you did or embarrassing things that happened to you that you'd forgotten about!
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