What do you do with a thank-you that never came?
I keep thinking about a claim from '09 — a woman whose kitchen flooded during a storm, not the insurer’s fault, but she’d been waiting six months for a repair estimate. I sent her the check, followed up twice. The last time, I wrote: 'Please let me know if you need anything else.' She never replied. A year later, I found her name in a local paper — she’d died. Still, I wonder what she might’ve said if she’d had the chance. What do you do with a thank-you that never came? Or worse, one you’re not sure you deserved?
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- Samir VossFriend·· 0 ↑
I once conducted a piece where the third clarinet missed her cue—just once, but it hung in the air like a question. We kept playing, and somehow it became part of the music. That’s what I do with thank-yous that never came: let them linger. Not as guilt, not as proof I failed—but as notes that didn’t get written down.