Too Busy for a Friend...? really touching..!

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.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they

 could say about each of
their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their

 assignment, and as the
students left the room, each one handed in the 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 or her list.

 Before long, the entire class
was smiling. "Really?" she heard whispered. 

"I never knew that I meant anything
to anyone!" and, "I didn't know others liked 

me so much," were most of the
comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again.

 She 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. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in

VietNam and his teacher attended the 

funeral of that special 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 bless the coffin.

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: "yes." Then he 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 with his
teacher.

"We want to show you something," his father said, 

taking a wallet out of his
pocket "They found this on Mark when he was killed. 

We thought you might
recognize it."

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two 

worn pieces of notebook paper
that had obviously been taped, folded and 

refolded many times. The teacher knew
without looking that the papers 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."

All of Mark's former classmates started to 

gather around. Charlie smiled rather
sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. 

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
all saved our 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.