Tom Pick, over on the WebMarketCentral blog tagged me to write about the people who most influenced my life. He never asks me the easy questions, but I'll persevere...
My father. Yes, there seems to always be a parent in these, but I'm thinking that's a good thing. When I was 7 years old, I wanted a horse. Boy, did I want a horse! I thought for sure that I'd get one for my birthday that year, but all I was given was a flat wrapped box. Definitely too small to hold a horse.
Inside was what had been a picture of a horse that had been cut into puzzle pieces. Lots of them. He told me that I could earn one piece for every two hours I put in working at his company after school. I know he thought I'd bail before I earned them all, thus saving him the headache and expense of a horse, but I made it. Took me six months of toiling, but I earned my horse.
After that, I had a system. Every time I wanted something else, I'd take Dad a picture of it and the scissors and then I'd get back to work.
My 4th Grade Teacher. This is terrible, but I cannot remember her name. However, she's the one who captivated me with my fascination for reading and writing. I wanted to write about everything after spending a year under her guidance.
She had a way of encouraging her students to embrace talents they were passionate about. That ability to motivate has never been matched by another teacher, and I've had a lot of them. Writing is a talent that's held me in good stead throughout my life and is still paying off. Thank God for teachers like her!
Jennifer Kerouac. Jeni was my best friend's daughter. When she was three, she almost drowned, but survived with all her mental faculties, if not her motor skills. She was the most gracious and wonderful person I've ever known, so open to everyone and everything. And it wasn't easy to be different from everyone else back then, either. But the ugliness never touched her.
She lived about twenty years longer than the doctors back then said she would and, up until the end, she took joy in all the small things most of us take for granted. She could also communicate more with a look than most people can with a speech. I miss her immensely, but know she's off doing something great somewhere else.
There are a lot of others I could name here, but I'm going to stop with those three. They were huge influences in my life and taught me a lot about perseverance, using my talents and grace under pressure.
And, I'm going to be a Meme fizzler and not tag anyone else. Sorry Tom.
