Be Somebody

Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody.

That was not just something Harlan did.

It was something he learned by watching Mom.

Mom had a way of making people feel welcome, included, and important. She could talk to almost anyone. She remembered details. She asked questions. She made people feel that their story mattered.

And Mom always had a joke for any topic.

I mean any topic.

She kept a trove of written punchlines in her checkbook. After she passed, Harlan and I found boxes of old checkbooks filled with deposit slips she had used to jot down lines, jokes, and reminders.

The problem was that we had absolutely no ability to match those punchlines with her vast repertoire.

We had the endings.

We just did not always know the beginnings.

That was Mom.

Always ready with a line. Always ready to make somebody laugh. And always paying enough attention to know what might brighten the moment.

Harlan had that same quality.

Since he passed, people have reached out to tell me about conversations they had with him—many of them conversations I never knew took place.

Harlan did not come home and announce that he had helped someone, encouraged someone, or made someone feel better.

He just did it.

A kind word.

A joke.

A private conversation.

A moment of listening.

A little reassurance at exactly the right time.

What may have felt like an ordinary exchange to Harlan stayed with the other person. In some cases, it stayed with them for years.

After he died, they reached out because they wanted me to know what he had meant to them.

And just as Mom had her stash of punchlines, Harlan had his own stash of connection.

After he passed, we found virtually every card that friends and family had ever sent him.

There were postcards from me, dotting the map from coast to coast.

There were notes from family.

There was an inch-thick stack of birthday cards, Valentine’s cards, Halloween cards, and random cards filled with quotes from our Aunt Barb.

He kept them.

Not because the cards themselves were valuable, but because the people were.

The words mattered.

The connection mattered.

The fact that someone had thought of him mattered.

The more stories I heard, and the more of those saved cards we found, the more I understood that Harlan had inherited one of Mom’s best qualities.

They both had a way of noticing people.

Not just the loudest person in the room.

Not just the most successful or impressive person.

They noticed the person who needed to be included, heard, or reminded that they mattered.

Neither of them lived a perfect life.

None of us do.

But they both lived with a basic instinct to connect with people and make them feel valued.

That is what today’s picture says to me.

Mom and Harlan did not simply believe that everybody was somebody.

**They treated people that way.**

They lived that theme in ordinary moments, often without realizing the lasting effect they were having.

They made people laugh.

They made people comfortable.

They made people feel seen.

And now, years later, those small moments have become part of their legacy.

The material things mean less after you are gone.

The checkbooks fade.

The cards become boxes.

The furniture changes hands.

But the seeds of hope, spirit, and kindness keep growing in the people who remember.

And Harlan’s motto—**“Peace, Love and Equality for all”**—still echoes in his voice.

Every time someone tells me a story about Harlan, I get another glimpse of the person he was outside of our family.

I also see Mom in him a little more clearly.

The same warmth.

The same humor.

The same interest in people.

The same ability to make someone feel that, for that moment, they were the most important person in the room.

That is a beautiful way to be remembered.

And it is a pretty good lesson for the rest of us:

**Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody.**

**Shabbat Shalom.**

*Hal & Peggy Jo*