Remember your life-shapers

Who shapes us? Who are the people who helped us to become who we are?

Several years ago, I started working on a column about the people who have had the greatest impact on my life. There’s always a risk when you make a list that you will omit someone. So I filed it away for a later time.

The list included people in my family, as you would expect. It also included some editors, a few writers, several teachers, a minister or two and friends. I already have written about many of them.

What’s true for all of us is that we are shaped by all of those around us, many times in a positive way, but also sometimes negatively. All of those relationships and interactions affect us, depending which influences we embrace and which ones we reject.

Those influencers helped me to establish my moral compass. They taught me compassion. They emphasized the importance of setting high standards and learning from failure. I learned that investment doesn’t apply only to finances, and that charity and tolerance have rewards for both the giver and the receiver.

And so much more.

How often do we share with those life-shapers what they mean to us?

Recently I called and talked to someone I haven’t seen or talked to in 50 years. Someone who unknowingly had a bigger impact on my life than she ever knew. She does now.

Her name is Dorothy Davis. She was Mrs. Davis to me, and she was my English teacher when I was a senior in high school. She was tough, and I’m thankful for that.

That year, exactly 50 years ago, she forced her students to write a term paper. A full-blown, college-type term paper. We were seniors nearing the end of our high school careers. At the time, she wasn’t popular with some of her students. A year later, I understood how much she had done for me.

As a college freshman, I was assigned term papers. While some others struggled, I already had a game plan, thanks to Mrs. Davis.

It was more than how to write a term paper. I learned organization. I learned about finding facts and how to do research. I learned accountability and credibility. And time management.

All of those skills didn’t come from Mrs. Davis alone, but she played a big part.

Several months ago, I saw a name I recognized on a Facebook group page from my hometown. I thought it might be the son of Mrs. Davis, so I reached out to him. After a few exchanges, he sent her phone number to me.

She is 87 now, just a few years younger than my parents, but she remembered me. We talked for about 10 minutes, and she was so happy to know how much her teaching had influenced my life at a time when I was learning to be a writer. 

It would have been so easy not to make that call, but both of us hung up that day knowing how much others can mean to us.

Thanks to her, and to so many others, I went on to a career as a writer and editor. Now she knows.

If there is someone who has made a difference in your life, let that person know. It’s worth the effort. It will mean the world to that person. It may mean the world to you, also.

Although I won’t list them here by name, I appreciate every person who had an influence on me. They helped me to become the person I am today. For that, they deserve the credit and the blame.