AND as I look at the New Year messages that’s flooding my phone, I see something that may have escaped many of us, it is that many of us are reaching out! A reaching out to the new year, asking for a change in circumstances, a change from misery, a change from the drudgery of the last year! What is it you hope for?
I see lonely people, crying for a year when their loneliness will be erased, and my heart goes out to them. I sat for a while and wondered what words of hope I could give to each of us, to ease this year, and the thought that came to me was, ‘reach out’! Yes, reach out! But not to Lady Luck but to people! As long as we feel that circumstances will change like someone waves a magic wand and everything changes, it doesn’t happen that way.
I remember the day my mother passed away. I was alone at home with my wife and kids abroad. She had died suddenly in the US and I was in shock. All I wanted was to be alone, and at that moment the doorbell rang, and on my landing, I saw a family from Punjab. “We were told to stay with you!” the old man said, as his old wife, their married son, his wife and two children looked at me.
“Do you know what I’m going through!” my mind wanted to cry out, and then I remembered I’d promised a friend my home, as relatives came for the marriage of their son. I opened the door and let them in. “How,” I asked myself, “would I be able to handle my grief and these guests alone?”
They occupied all my rooms. I made them coffee, toast and butter. Suddenly I wanted to make them comfortable. I realised that the noisy child was mentally challenged but instead of getting irritated with his noise, helped the father with taking him to the garden and quietening him down. Suddenly in reaching out, I felt hands reaching in! They were with me for three full days. To all those who are looking for a change of luck this year, start reaching out and touching the lives of others. There are others lonelier than you, and as you reach out and touch them with a visit, a phone call, words of encouragement, you will find your attitude to your own circumstances changing.
Don’t just do this today, make it part of your day, three hundred and sixty five times this year and more, and at the end of the year, there’ll be a thank you in your eyes and joy in your eyes as you tell me what a great year it was. Start right now, reach out to someone lonelier than you..!
—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com
