One day, a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

She then told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down on those papers.

It took the remainder of the class period for the students to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one of them handed in their papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday, she gave each student his/her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling broadly.

"Really?" someone whispered. "I have never knew that I meant anything to anyone!", "I didn't know others liked me so much," were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. The teacher never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in the on-going war and his teacher attended the funeral of that particular student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature. The church was packed with his friends. One by one, those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to give her blessings.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. She nodded. Then, that soldier said, "Mark talked about you a lot."

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak to his teacher.

"We just want to show you something," his father said, taking out a wallet from his pocket. "They found this on Mark on that day he was killed. We thought you might recognize these."

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, re-taped, folded and re-folded many times. The teacher knew without looking at those papers that they were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

"Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it a lot."

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around.

Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list too. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home."

Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album."

"I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary"

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we have all saved our own lists"

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.


The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.

So, please tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is all too late, and 1 way to accomplish this is to pass this story on. If not, you will have, once again pass up the wonderful opportunity to do something nice and beautiful.

Remember, you reap what you sow. What you put into the lives of others will come back into your own.