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Appreciation, yes please
By Sue Carvalho
I realized today that one of the greatest gifts is the gift of appreciation. I recently heard of the passing of some very dear Christ Church family members. I hope they knew how much they were appreciated. Alan Scott was the first I heard of. My first memory of Alan was sitting in the pew in front of us years ago with his arms around his two young daughters at the time. I thought what a loving sight to see. We eventually became good friends with Alan through Christ Church and saw all the wonderful ways he gave to Christ Church and others. He was Senior Warden over and over and over and helped oversee several transitions of new Priests. He served as Treasurer, the Finance committee and was always working the Harvest Festival selling raffle tickets. Alan will be appreciated as a faithful and loyal servant of God. He never seemed to falter in his faith, even after repeated cancer diagnosis and a divorce. Some how he always knew there was a brighter day to come. Our latest memory of Alan was last summer when we came to visit and he asked how we were and caught us up on how his family is doing and his impending retirement. I hope I always let Alan know how much we appreciated him
Recently I also heard of the passing of Gayle Velozo. I became friends with her after a Harvest Festival a few years ago when I had her world famous cream puffs. Divine comes to mind when I think of the cream puffs. She was divine as well. Very classy, quiet in manner and steadfast in her stewardship to Christ Church.
I recently also heard of the passing of Mike Maxwell, Shirley Stasiowskis grandson, a fine young man that I remember as a child from years ago. I never had the opportunity to tell him what a fine young man he turned into, hopefully I had expressed that to Shirley.
Life goes by, quicker than we hope and as our lives get busy do we take the time to appreciate? If you know me than you probably have been the recipient of one of my postcards…my small way to say I appreciate you. If you can't take the time to write (I know it's very old school) can you take the time to text or call someone to tell them that you truly appreciate them. We think that others know you appreciate them, but when was the last time you told them. We usually are quicker to tell a stranger that we appreciate them vs a close friend or family member.
You can never appreciate someone or something too much can you?..but you can certainly not appreciate as much as you should. Let's take the time to appreciate Alan,Gayle and Mike and let someone close to them know.
While you are at it make the effort to appreciate something or someone in your life……today….. while wait another moment. Appreciation,truly is the best gift.
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