Tell them what they mean to you because one day that opportunity will be gone

This article is brought to you by the Kokomo Downtown Farmers Market.

The Market is on!

We’ve been itching to see you, and this Saturday will be the perfect opportunity to reconnect! Thanks to the local farmers, growers, and vendors who faithfully offer fresh food and throughful products to our community, the Kokomo Downtown Farmers Market is a place where everyone can celebrate what makes our city great!

We hope you will join us tomorrow between 9 a.m. and noon at the intersection of Mulberry and Washington streets. And bring a friend! We’ll see you at the Market!

In my professional career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some pretty unique and incredible people. People who, in one way or another, have impacted my life, regardless of how little or how much I actually worked with them. And the lessons that I’ve learned from working with people, I carry with me throughout my life.

I’m a sponge when it comes to taking in the things that I’ve been taught over the years. Whether that’s personal or professional, I pay attention. I listen. I learn. And I carry those things with me.

But death is real. People die.

I understand that’s a fact of life. But the expectation that people die often seems like a distant event to many of us. It doesn’t really occur to you that someone you’re working closely with could pass away, because life just seems to be going on seamlessly.

But you never really know what’s going on in somebody else’s life. They could be dealing with things that are beyond our understanding and beyond our ability to know, especially when you’re dealing with people in a professional atmosphere. You may work with somebody every day and still not really know what they’re going through.

I just wanted to say a few words in honor of someone I had the opportunity to know while I was Executive Director of Carver Community Center.

Brenda Rodriguez of San Antonio, Texas, died in July of 2025. Brenda gave us the very foundation for one of our annual events. From month to month, we had the opportunity to work together and build this thing out.

She was real. She was honest. She was eclectic in her fashion and in her thinking. She knew things. She thought about things as my coach that I would not have even considered. And she openly shared those things with me. And then she died.

That impacted me when I found out, greater than I expected or ever imagined because here was this person who was vibrant and full of life one day and then gone the next.

She was special. She was only my professional friend. We weren’t personal friends. But she was here for a season. And that season had a purpose.

It reminds me of Scripture in James 4:14: “You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

Brenda came into my life for a season, and she left a lasting impact on me. She left an impression on me to go on and achieve something. She did that.

So, my message today is simple: Don’t take people for granted. You never know. One day they’re here. The next moment, they’re gone. One day you’re smiling and laughing with that person. The next moment, you’re not.

Don’t take people for granted. Give people their flowers. Love them. Show them. Tell them who they are to you. Tell them what they mean to you. Tell them the impact they’ve had on your life because you never know when the opportunity to tell them will be gone.