It was the Fourth of July some years ago. My wife Jeannie and I took our four-year-old son Jordan shopping at Walmart here in Arizona. While she browsed the aisles, I took Jordan for a treat at the snack bar. The lady behind the counter appeared to be around seventy. I ordered a soft pretzel for myself and a slushy for my son. As she handed me my change, I noticed that she seemed distracted, unsure of herself. She fumbled through the cash drawer.
“I’m not myself today,” she apologized as she counted out the coins into my hand. “My husband passed away ten years ago today at five o’clock.”
She glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall of the luncheonette. It was ten after five.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not really knowing how to respond but sensing that she wanted to talk about it. “Do you have anyone to spend the day with today?”
She said she had children and grandchildren nearby and would be watching fireworks with them that night. Still, it was obvious that particular hour was an especially lonely one for her.
For the next several minutes, I listened while she shared memories of her husband. My son pulled on my pant leg, wanting to leave. My soft pretzel was getting cold. I asked her if her husband fought in the big war. “No, he was making airplanes at the converted Westinghouse factory,” she explained.
“Well, then he did his part,” I assured her. We had a lovely time, her reminiscing and me imagining a time when life was much harder and freedom much more fragile.
Soon it was time to go. While Jeannie checked out, Jordan and I headed toward the exit. On our way out, I noticed one of the store’s greeters, a man probably in his late eighties, helping a woman with her shopping cart. I asked him if he was a veteran, and that was all it took. We talked for several minutes about his work in an Army hospital where he was placed in charge of a small field clinic after only a few weeks of medical training. Those were desperate times. He proudly lifted the sleeve of his shirt to show me his wound, not from battle, but from his slide into home base during a season playing for the St. Louis Cardinals. Fifteen minutes later, I was just a little richer for having listened.
A little lady behind a lunch counter and a greeter, both brimming with stories and a need to tell them to someone who cared. But I don’t think they just wanted someone to talk to. With age, I believe, comes a desire to pass on to the next generation a legacy of values and history that are best communicated through life stories. A drive to share memories replete with richness before it’s too late. Yet so much of that rich legacy will be left untapped—and we will be all the poorer—until and unless we do the simplest thing.
Just ask.
Too often, we allow our life experiences, and the resulting wisdom gathered from them, to slip through our fingers, assuming that others could never benefit from what we might share. Or that, in the busyness of life, they simply don’t have the time or even care. We assume that our past disappointments and hardships are unique to us.
Truth is, each of us has our own stories of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, and there is tremendous value in sharing our stories—our humanity—with each other. Connecting with others brings out our common feelings and allows each of us to grow emotionally and intellectually.
And there is a treasure trove of wisdom to be tapped from others with rich life experiences. Too often those treasures remain untapped because the guardians of those treasures assume no one cares to hear their stories. But when we just ask – especially of those whose advanced years have allowed them the privilege of gathering a lot of wisdom – we enrich ourselves and those who may be waiting for someone who cares enough to just ask.
Rod Robison is a Tucson, Arizona based mentalist, speaker, and the author of the book The Magic of Cultivating Positive Emotions from which this post is adapted. Available at www.TucsonMagician.com/books.
