This is a story about how we need each other.  Often, others serve as mirrors reflecting back the beauty and goodness they see in us.  Related by Rachel Naomi Remen, a doctor, teacher, and writer, this story beautifully illustrates how other people in our lives, these mirrors, become a part of us:

Rachel’s grandfather died when she was seven years old.   She had never lived in a world without him before, and his death was hard for her.  She says, “He looked at me as no one else had and called me by a special name, Nischuma-la, which means ‘little beloved soul.’  There was no one left to call me this anymore.  At first, I was afraid that without him to see me and tell God who I was, I might disappear.  But slowly, over time, I came to understand that in some mysterious way I had learned to see myself through his eyes, and, that once blessed, we are blessed forever.

“Many years later, in her extreme old age, my mother surprisingly began to light candles and talk to God herself.  I told her about these blessings and what they had meant to me.  She had smiled at me sadly.  ‘I have blessed you every day of your life Rachel,’ she told me.  ‘I just never had the wisdom to do it out loud.’”

How often do we come to realize that we love someone, but we haven’t said I love you recently?  Or we haven’t expressed that love with a more pure and direct quality of tenderness?  We hold back.  What are we waiting for?  Our words may become that loved ones’ blessing, that loved ones’ mirror showing them how loved and how lovable they are.

*Adapted from a speech by Tara Brach, www.tarabrach.com.