Don’t just keep people in your thoughts. Reach out to them because maybe they have been thinking of you too, and may need your kindness.
By Kavita Chandran Budhraja
Last month my husband woke up to a rude shock. A close friend of his was no more, and he learned about his death through an email from a colleague.
The last time they had met was three years ago in New York City over dinner, toasting to the frenzied yet lovable metropolis where they had launched their careers and started their respective families. They had reminisced about their youth and joked about their greys, while also discussing college plans for their kids. It was a beautiful night and they had sat in the restaurant late into the night, comfortably numb after some laughs and nightcaps.
A year later, as the Delta variant raged across countries, my husband saw a LinkedIn post and noted that his friend had moved to Amsterdam. He made a mental note to get his new number but quickly got consumed by work emails and zoom calls in Singapore. Many such moments passed when we thought of our fun and “larger-than-life” buddy, but somehow never got around to making an effort to get his phone number. We assumed it was either a new job or his son’s college plans that must’ve moved them back to their home country—not once did we consider the possibility of a life-threatening disease.
Events like these teach us lessons and force us to introspect our often blasé attitude about the future, knowing well how unpredictable it is but somehow assuming it won’t touch us—until it does. The regret that follows can manifest into nagging pain-points that make you wish you had just one more day to send that text or make that phone call.
Reach out to someone – ‘just because’!
A study published in the American Psychological Association (APA) PsycNet Journal titled ‘The surprise of reaching out: Appreciated more than we think’ documents how we underestimate the gestures of staying in touch with those who matter to us. The study conducted on more than 4,500 respondents, mostly from the U.S., found that people who checked in on someone they hadn’t seen in a while underestimated how much the recipient would appreciate their gesture.
“We hope that our findings will encourage people to reach out to their social contacts more often, ‘just because’,” says Prof. Peggy J. Liu, the co-author of the study at the University of Pittsburgh. “Such small gestures are likely to be appreciated more than people predict.”
Without being obsessive, we could learn a thing or two about ‘staying in touch’ from our children as they are often better informed about their friends’ lives because of the sheer pressure of posting and reacting about the good, the bad and the ugly on social media. We, the parents, on the other hand, are quite self-absorbed in our respective rat races, trying to build a better future for our children, leaving no time to cherish and ‘check in’ on someone who had brightened our past.
So, the next time you remember a long-lost friend fondly, just text or call without an agenda—before it’s too late.
We attended our friend’s funeral online with a backdrop of memorable pictures as his casket rested in the middle of the room, surrounded by kith and kin. The last photo on the screen was of two good friends doing a ‘Thumbs Up’ after their first skydiving experience in 1996, a memory etched deep in my husband’s heart.
This is the text our friend’s wife sent us after the condolence call — “So nice to talk to you. And now all I want is to call Douwe and tell him about it.”
Kavita is a journalist, wellness practitioner and founder of Sankia, the publisher of Yogahood Online.
