Take and Give

“Have you ever received a personal compliment (not on your looks or writing), that was unexpected or unusual?  Would you compare those to odd, half-baked or “left-handed” compliments?” 

I will say that I have received compliments about a number of my accomplishments and even a few of my attributes, but what led me come up with this topic was thinking over what happened to me recently, and the other unexpected ones that have stayed with me. 

As for ‘left-handed’ compliments, I was always told how much I looked like my sister. It was unfortunate that it often happened with the phrase “You’re, (or You will be), almost  as pretty as your sister.” 
 

(It wasn’t funny then, but it rather is now. That was about looks, I guess.) 

The left-handed ones I get now generally end with “for your age”, which are seldom about my looks, more like hearing, eyesight, balance, etc. 

As most of you know, I grew up around the Nation’s Capital.  Most people hear that and assume that at least one of my parents was a civil servant, no, they weren’t, although they met working for a government contractor during WWII. No one in the family was a government employee, but I decided to take a few of the tests, and see if any of it suited me. One of my first interviews was for a “clerking” job at the government printing office, which happened to be very near where I was living in Northern Virginia.   
  

Ore-computers, when you wanted a copy of a government-published paper, pamphlet, booklet, etc., you sent in a request with a small printing fee and waited.  

Sometimes you really waited a long time and sometimes in vain; what you wanted could not be found, and this happened to me at least once. The original documents were filed in boxes and stored in the place where I went for that particular job. I went in a skirt and blouse, and nice shoes.   

 I immediately liked the boss, who was obviously an intelligent, down-to-earth, family man in his fifties, (a man they probably would have hired Morgan Freeman to play him, had he been shorter and chubbier.) We chatted, then he looked over my resume and my government ratings. He talked about what they did and I said I knew, as I had ordered some publications apparently housed there. He said, “I would love to hire you to go through the boxes and find what is in the wrong place. Once papers get misfiled, there is no way to know where they are again and they are never found. But that isn’t in the budget, they won’t let me hire someone for that, but you could do it.” Then said, “You are too much of a lady for this job.”  

When I looked surprised, he said, “Have you looked around? It’s a warehouse. We have some women, but this is not work for you.” I looked out of his office and he was right; men and some tough young women were lifting big boxes everywhere. This was just as anti-discrimination was getting into full swing; talk like that could get him fired and make him lose his pension. I mentioned that as I thanked him, and did not tell anyone for many years because this man did not deserve any backlash. He did me an enormous favor and gave me a compliment that has lasted 50 years. 

Some years later, right after I got married, the mother of a friend and neighbor came to visit her from out of state. 

We had many interactions with her family, as her son was in the seminary with a relative of mine, and I met him at a celebration, then a few years later he was assigned to my parish.   The mother’s house in Iowa was a way station for people traveling between Virginia and Colorado or California, and The Husband had stayed at her house more than once. Her son-in-law taught with him at the time, as well. She was a lovely lady and we hit it off right away. Her daughter came to me after our first talk and said, “I have to tell you this. My mother really likes you. She asked, ‘Does Joe appreciate that girl?” 

That has carried me through a lot. I saw her whenever she came to town before I left Colorado. 

Possibly the very best compliment like this I ever received came to me just a few months back. The Husband and I were getting phones set up and data transferred, and it was all time-consuming. It was raining hard, so the people at AT&T had plenty of time for us and as we waited, we all started talking with them. The 40-ish manager was from near where I was born and we chatted about Maryland. The 30-ish woman helping us and I got into relationships after I talked about meeting The Husband in the state next to where the manager was born, how I had moved to a western state, and then to another to get married.  She asked how long we had been together. I said we had gotten married forty-one years ago. She reiterated, “But how long have you been together?”  I said it was complicated because we had met six and a half years before we married, however, he had gone back to the seminary twice, and been engaged to someone else in between times. She found it all romantic when she asked about him visiting me over 2,000 miles away. She asked if we fall into each other’s arms when he came, and did he propose then and I said, “Well, actually, yes.” We talked about many more things, (the phones needed very long downloads). In the middle of one part of the conversation, I paused when talking. She turned to The Husband and said, “How dare you put a ring on another woman!”, and then motioned for me to go on. 

I can’t describe how much of a compliment that was! We got into the car after about twenty more minutes in the AT&T store, and I asked The Husband if he caught what she said.  
He had. 
Good for him 

 It’s small things like these that can make a real difference. 

Take them when they come,
and give them whenever you can.