Say what you need to say before it's too late

Why do we wait so long to tell someone what they mean to us? What makes us quick to criticize and slow to offer praise? Why are the most important words often the hardest to say?

People like to tell me stuff. Not just friends, but strangers, too. It's not unusual to find myself leaning on the sink in a public restroom listening to someone I just met as she walked out of a stall, pour out her heart. I'm not sure if it's a blessing or a curse.

When my kids were teenagers, they used to tell their friends, "Careful. My mom wears a sign on her back that says 'confess.'"

The sign worked for their friends, not so much for them.

Once, in the airport, my husband stepped off an escalator ahead of me. When he realized I wasn't with him, he looked back and saw me hugging a stranger.

I'd asked the man behind me, "Did you have fun in Vegas?"

His answer broke my heart. After 50 years apart, he'd come to say goodbye to the love of his life, who was dying of cancer.

"I should've married her 50 years ago," he said. I hugged him, and then he was gone.

Moments later, my husband said, "He told you all that on the escalator?" I shrugged.

"Maybe he just needed to tell somebody. And I sort of asked."

When someone wants to talk, you don't need to wear a sign on your back to get them to open up. Ask a question. The words don't matter. It's the tone in your voice and the look in your eyes and the caring in your heart that count. If you don't care, don't ask. If you do? Well, then, just shut up and listen.

Sometimes I think the whole world is starving to be heard.

We wear shirts with catchy phrases that say in effect, "Hey, look at me!" We put bumper stickers on our cars spouting opinions we won't discuss in polite company. We hang words on our walls (mine are "Eat," "Hope" and "To everything there is a season...") to remind us of things too fine to forget.

And yet, we neglect to ask the questions and say the things we need to say to those who matter most to us while there is still time and opportunity to do so.

Go figure.

Recently I heard from a reader who was kind enough to share with me the eulogy she'd written after losing her mother.

Sometimes, as I writer, I'll read someone's writing and think, "OK, I don't need to write any more. It's been done."

This was that kind of writing. I wish you could've read it.

Most of all, I wish her mother could've read it. I can only hope her mother knew all the things her daughter wrote about her — that she was known so well and loved so very much.

I like to think folks will say a few nice things about me when I'm gone. But given a choice, I'd rather hear those things before I go. Wouldn't we all?

That started me thinking. I need to tell my children I am proud of them. They know it, but it can't hurt to say it again.

I need to tell my sister I'll be forever in her debt. I was the one who left. She was the one who stayed, who's "been there" for our family — for our mother, our dad, our brothers and me.

I need to say to my best friend in second grade that I am sorry I broke her nose (an accident); and to my best friend in high school, that I am sorry I stole her boyfriend (also unintended); and to any friends still speaking to me, I am sorry I don't call you more often, and I won't blame you if you don't say nice things about me when I am gone.

And to my husband, I need to say, well, he puts up with a lot.

While I'm at it, I need to say to readers, thank you, thank you, thank you, for reading.

Actually, I need to say a lot of things to a whole lot of people. Maybe you do, too. You can tell me, if you want. But maybe you should tell them first.

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Award-winning essayist Sharon Randall's weekly column has an estimated readership of 6 million nationwide. Born and reared in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North and South Carolina, Randall grew up in Landrum, S.C., and has lived for 35 years in "California of All Places."