{"id":22255,"date":"2017-03-22T19:50:20","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T00:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22255"},"modified":"2017-03-22T20:34:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T01:34:16","slug":"id-forgotten-what-i-said-about-her-necklace-but-she-hadnt-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=22255","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019d forgotten what I said about her necklace, but she hadn\u2019t forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I noticed the cupcakes in the woman’s arms as we waited for the elevator on the fourth floor. It was a tray of a dozen or so cupcakes you get at any grocery store’s bakery section. It was lunch and I was hungry, so they looked good.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I ever turn to a life of crime, I’m going to start robbing people with cupcakes like those,\u201d I joked with her.<\/p>\n

A elevator dinged to announced its arrival and we stepped on. As we rode to the first floor, we joked about the difficulty of staying away from sugar.<\/p>\n

As we stepped out of the elevator in the lobby, another woman joined her. As we were walking out of the building, the first woman pointed to the second and made a mocking accusation.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the one who gave me the cupcakes, so I blame her for the temptation,\u201d she joked.<\/p>\n

Then the second woman reminded me that we met last week \u2014 also on the elevator. I didn\u2019t recall her face, but I vaguely remembered talking to someone like her \u2014 a thin, well-dressed black woman of about 30 \u2014 and I realized she was wearing the same pearl necklace — a simple single strand — that I had commented on when we met.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOh, that\u2019s right,\u201d I said. \u201cYou\u2019re wearing those pearls that look so great on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She beamed a sheepish grin as she looked at her friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worn these every day since then because he said that,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019ve made me feel pretty since he said he liked them on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As we went our separate ways, I was reminded once again that my words can really change someone\u2019s day \u2014 for good or bad.<\/p>\n

People frequently remember far more about what we say to them than we assume they do.\u00a0It\u2019s important to speak with love and kindness.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> It seems as though I’ve had a lot of opportunities to notice this lesson lately. Here’s another incident<\/a> that happened to me about six weeks ago that deals wth the same theme.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I noticed the cupcakes in the woman’s arms as we waited for the elevator on the fourth floor. It was a tray of a dozen or so cupcakes you get at any grocery store’s bakery section. It was lunch and I was hungry, so they looked good. \u201cIf I ever turn to a life of Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-5MX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22255"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22263,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22255\/revisions\/22263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}