Marion's Communication Tips

Say It While You Can

Hey MarionSpeaks, today is my birthday and I find myself reflecting over the past year. It was this same week last year that I lost my mom. She was 90 years young and suffered from Alzheimer's -- it was like losing her twice. When I got the news of her passing, it was especially difficult because I was in Florida and she was in the Niagara region. As I trekked back home, I tapped out my weekly article enroute. It was the enewsletter that has to this date, received one of the highest responses from you, my readers, colleagues and clients.

In memory of my mom and in honor of all the people in your life you hold near and dear or have lost, I share with you this "encore" article I wrote last year. Although months have passed, the message is a timeless one. Even through difficult times, you can share and receive the lessons learned -- and it's this very art of sharing that is one of the many vestiges my mother leaves behind.

November 2010

SAD NEWS ... AND THE BEST GIFT I EVER RECEIVED

 

It's with an aching heart that I tell you this past week, my mother passed away. As I type, I am in JFK International Airport enroute to returning home from a wonderful birthday cruise and Florida holiday. Getting closer to Ottawa, I find the reality of the situation is beginning to hit and I'm bracing myself for the overwhelm of emotion I will feel upon my return to reality and familiar things that remind me of mom.

 

I am so very grateful to have had my mother in my life for this length of time. The nursing staff in her seniors home have cried many tears, a measure of the extent to which my mother innately reached out and touched lives around her.

 

This coming week is Thanksgiving for our American colleagues. During this festive season, it makes me think back over the years of all the gifts given and received for which I've been grateful. I bet there's one special gift you gave that you remember fondly. Me too.

The best present I ever gave was one I prepared for my mother just a few months ago. My mom was 90 years old and had suffered from Alzheimer's for almost a decade (gee, it seems odd to use the word "was", as in past tense). Although she remembered most of her family members most of the days, the disease slowly robbed her of her precious memories. Chatting and visiting with her was always a joy and made me greatly appreciate the importance of communicating, even when you're not sure if it will be remembered. Although fleeting, I know with certainty there were moments we connected. 

Almost twenty years ago, I had written mom a series of letters with each entitled, "lessons my mother taught me". In these writings, I shared with her life skills I had learned at her hand when I was a child. Through mom's many moves to progressively increased care, these letters had been lost. Recently, I decided to recreate them and mail them to her again. For the past few months, every couple weeks I snail-mailed my mother a one-page note sharing one of my childhood memories of how deeply she had impacted my life. The lessons were principles that have guided me throughout the years, including:

• keep a song in your heart
• never be embarrassed by someone who loves you
• a promise is a promise.

This past September, I drove from Ottawa to the Niagara region to visit my mom, as I had done countless times over the years. When I walked in her room, I handed her a surprise -- a binder with a cover that read, "Lessons My Mother Taught Me". The subtitle noted, "Lessons learned by: Marion Grobb Finkelstein / Lessons taught by: Rita M. Grobb". Inside, in plastic page protectors, were the typed stories of each lesson I'd sent her.

For the week of my visit, each day I would read these stories aloud and she listened in awe. One time, much to my surprise and huge delight, she even read along with me and we took turns reading alternate paragraphs. Every time I read these lessons, it was as if she was hearing the stories for the first time. Really, in her mind, she was. My mom was amazed that I remembered these incidents and  she marveled at the lasting impression that her everyday actions had on me. "You remembered that?", she'd ask, as I recounted a seemingly incidental event. She smiled and listened intently as the stories unfolded and she realized her role in them. 

I felt a compelling need to share these joys with her in the living years. Why wait until she couldn't understand or (gulp) for a eulogy (my mother taught me that too - to express appreciation in the moment). As I sit here now, on this side of my mother's life, I am ever grateful that I shared them when I did.

Whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving, or soon to celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, or just the festive holiday spirit and sense of connection with others, I encourage you to communicate with someone who has touched you in ways he or she may not even realize. Let them know the positive influence they've had on your life and don't wait until tomorrow because, as I was sadly reminded, tomorrow may never come. It may be a family member, a colleague, your boss, or a client. Now is your time to reach out.

My mother may not have remembered the gift of my binder or the lessons she so ably taught me. She might not have recalled receiving the crisp typed one-page stories I'd mailed to her, or have any recollection of me seated by her side reading them to her.

 

She might not have remembered any of it at all, but I sure do. And that's the gift she gave me.

Until next time, here's to ...
Better communication, Better business, Better life,
Marion Grobb Finkelstein
COMMUNICATION CATALYST
Keynote Speaker / Corporate Trainer / Author
www.MarionSpeaks.com
Marion@MarionSpeaks.com
www.facebook.com/MarionSpeaks  

© 2011 Marion Grobb Finkelstein
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