The Lives that Touch Our Lives

With life comes death. It's a natural part of living, yet why does it impact us so deeply? That question has been debated for centuries by the greatest thinkers and yet no definitive answer has ever been given. I don't want to start off the month of love depressing, but my local RWA chapter recently lost two people very close to our members, Connie Brockheart and Jeff Jacobs. My way to honor such joyful caring people is to dedicate this post to them.
Though my interactions with them was limited, just knowing them made my life different. Connie always had a smile, despite any pain she was feeling from polio. I later learned she was the oldest person still living that had polio. What a record, right?  She always had a kind word for everyone. Connie's manuscript was the first manuscript I had seen unpublished, besides my own. Being a visual person I absorbed everything I read as I reentered it into the computer for her. It was fascinating and encouraging. It took me two weeks to get the full ms transcribed for her and she was thrilled when I handed her the flash drive.
My encounters with Jeff left me light hearted and full of laughter at his smart-alec comments and glad to have known him. He drove me up to Emerald City with a couple of friends for two years in a row and was a delight. I know his wife will miss him terribly. He adored her and encouraged her to live her dreams. What more could someone want?
It's amazing how people come into our lives and leave so expectantly. And the amount of impact they leave. I hope that when I do leave this plane of existence I will have left such an impression as these two wonderful loving people have.


Who in your life has left an impression on you? What were those impressions?