Whist sitting beside my dying mother’s bedside last month, I reflected on her life and the change she inspired in others simply by her radiant smile: a seemingly small gesture that brought such a lasting ray of light into other’s worlds. That, combined with how she listened to others, had an astonishing effect on the people she met.
I started to reflect on the power of light… a superpower, if you will. If the light we bring to other’s lives during our time here was the currency in any new world, then judging by the amount of people at my mother’s remembrances and those who have sent condolences, my mother would be holding a beacon.
She is someone who truly changed other’s lives by simply being. It’s a rare and wonderful gift and one we can choose to yield at any time whatever we do and whomever we meet.
Choosing to smile first and be open to listen is a powerful tool of change, both for our own world and of those we meet. Life can be stressful and onerous enough, but by being gentle with one another, we have the power to reduce another’s issues rather than add to them and I will continue to be inspired by the light my mother brought to other’s lives, even throughout her many ails towards the end.