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Original poster

Things that stay with you.

471 replies

penfriends · 04/06/2016 23:42

What random things have struck a chord with you?

Mine is a Postsecret card that said:

"Everyone who knew me before 9/11 think I'm dead"

I read it years ago but I think about that person. Family, parents, siblings.

Just one sentence but it's stayed with me fore years.

OP posts:
ArmySal · 09/06/2016 16:39

The gut-wrenching sobbing noises my friend's mum made at her funeral will always stay with me.

''You want to get yourself over to Thailand mate. The young lasses there are cracking and they let you do whatever you want to them''

Said by a fat, balding, bespectacled, anorak wearing 40 something man at a railway station to DP.

He'd wandered over to ask him the time and I overheard him say it after some idle chatter. It's always stayed with me and makes me feel sad, thinking of a poor 19 year old girl being pawed by a fat old lech.

''ArmySal how dare you pick my daffodils?!'' Said by my irate school teacher in the holidays after I decided to take a bunch home for my mother, totally unaware it was her garden. I've never picked a flower since.

LaContessaDiPlump · 09/06/2016 16:56

As others have said, I could give plenty of negatives but I won't.

A random man whom I gave way to, on a pedestrian street in Bristol: " What a lovely smile!" He had no ulterior motive for saying it. I've never forgotten.

A conversation with DS1 where I said I loved him and he said "Well I don't love you." He then considered and said "I mean, I love you a bit." He's very undemonstrative so this is beyond rubies to me.

A card from my then 13yo sister in Dubai saying 'I miss you. Stop being somewhere else'. I was at uni in the UK at the time.

DS2 cuddling with me and being my lovely baby.

Those are my best memories.

crayfish · 09/06/2016 17:30

"I don't give a fuck about you" - my dad. I haven't seen him since (this was a few years ago).

"It's a shame your boobs are so small, fat girls usually have big ones" - an emotionally abusive ex. This was about 20 years ago and I've never forgotten it.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 09/06/2016 17:58

Have just been reminded of the awful funeral after the suicide of a colleague's 18 year old son. Apparently some Catholics regard this as a sin, and the priest who took the service couldn't have made his distaste clearer - this even extended to the grieving mother, to whom he spoke not one word

Come the interment, the poor mum placed a hand on the coffin as they started to lower it, bending down further ... and further ... it really seemed at one point that she was going to throw herself down there with him Sad

BursarsFrogs · 09/06/2016 18:24

I want to add another positive one. When I was 16 I got robbed while alone in Brighton. Nothing dramatic, but I got stuck without any money a long way from anyone who could help me. I had some small change in my pocket and was asking a bus driver if I could just go as far as the change would take me. Some total stranger overheard me and came to pay my full fare. He then sat with me (busy night bus) and made sure I was fine and that I found my friend. I was so very thankful!

2ndSopranosRule · 09/06/2016 18:30

My mum's come out with a few corkers. "One day, Soprano, someone will find you attractive". Took me years to feel I could be beautiful. And "I don't know how anyone could be in a relationship with someone with a mental health problem". She doesn't know I was diagnosed with depression seven years ago.

On that, I had a horrendous time with my anxiety and depression last year. Almost the worst I've been. On one particular day I started to feel like it was all too much and I had a panic attack at work. Followed by months of almost not being able to leave the safe confines of my office once I'd got to work. My manager was unbelievably supportive through all of that. When I apologised he looked me straight in the eye and said "Never apologise; you never apologise. You'll be okay. You will. It's going to be okay"

Even though I felt all my strength was gone I held onto that and it really helped.

StrangeLookingParasite · 09/06/2016 18:42

2ndSopranos, your manager is an absolute gem - so rare!

80schild · 09/06/2016 18:49

I was 6 when my parents were stressing about my reading and speaking ability - I have spent my life with mild sen. I remember my grandad sitting beside me and saying to my mum "you're wrong about 80's. She'll be just fine". And I am.

Many issues over the years with confidence but this is the place I always go to when I feel crap about myself.

Think it is fair to say, you only need one person in your life to really believe in you and love you to put things right.

heartknot · 09/06/2016 19:20

Ex telling me I looked obscene when I was about 8 months pregnant and then within minutes of dd being born (and her looking very like him) him saying 'well I suppose I can't deny she's mine then' He never wanted me to have her and got together with his now wife 3 days before dd was born.
On the upside have had lots of precious moments with dd that will stay with me for ever Smile

EveryoneElsie · 09/06/2016 19:29

Dad threw the wreath on to Grand coffin. He didnt realise the flowers were on a heavy plastic frame to stop it blowing away.
It landed with a resounding BOOM noise that gave everyone there the horrors. It was fucking awful.

Karlakitten1 · 09/06/2016 19:30

I've had DH ask me "is it mine?" When we found out I was pregnant...he does have a way with words! His proposal was taping the ring to the valentines day card and saying "will you be my official bit?!". He has also joked about the baby coming out black, as apparently I have a thing for black men (I do a bit, but have never been with a black man in my life, DH is ginger as can be!). Baby is as ginger as he is and I'm sure there was a comment about how there was no doubt now! ConfusedAngry

hookiewookie29 · 09/06/2016 20:32

My 5 year old son meeting his newborn sister " Oh Mummy.....she's beautiful!"

I met my DH just weeks after splitting up with my first husband.I asked my Mum if she thought it was too soon. " You only walk this way once she said " so on the way through, you grab anything you can to make you happy".Me and DH have been together for 20 years, are very happy and have two great kids.

Truckingalong · 09/06/2016 21:57

Seeing the post mortem photos of a young girl who had been horrifically abused and murdered. It was 15 years ago now but I can still see the images in my minds eye.

BeYourselfUnlessUCanBeAUnicorn · 09/06/2016 22:43

It wasn't said to me but to DH. He had watched his dad die, performed cpr but it didn't work. 3 days later his mum chose that time to tell him she was having an affair.

CatThiefKeith · 09/06/2016 23:29

The sight of my best friends 4 year old dd laying a rose on her coffin and saying 'goodbye Mummy'

BikeRunSki · 09/06/2016 23:43

Oh Keith Sad.

Similarly, I didn't know DH's grandma very well, and only knew her as a bitter, grumpy old lady. FiL (her son) is very much a product of a 1940s/50s "boy's don't cry" upbringing and grammar school education. Very stiff upper lip. He gave the eulogy ad his mother's funeral, and pulled in many interesting best of family/Sheffiled history and anecdotes about her life. He delivered it very well (he is an academic and quite at home with conference speaking). As he got to the end, he started to cry, turned off the microphone and said quietly "Goodbye Mum, and thanks for all the love".

There were 4 or 5 toddler great grandchildren at the funeral. Gradually they were taken out by their parents. FiL says he'll always remember coming out of the crematorium to see them all kicking a ball about and laughing.

bottleofbeer · 09/06/2016 23:43

Aged 19my dad launched a pint glass at me (can't remember why) it missed me and shattered above my 16 month old son's head. I shouted "the baby!" And my dad thought I meant the baby I was pregnant with and said "I hope it dies".

BikeRunSki · 09/06/2016 23:45

A positive one

Phone call, at home one Sunday evening 12 years ago. I was nursing a sprained ankle and almost didn't get up to answer it!

"I'm sorry about tinged you at home, but you did say not to ring you at work. I'm ringing to offer you the job..."

12 years later I can't imagine ever working anywhere else.

BikeRunSki · 09/06/2016 23:46

Tinged??? = ringing!

madmother1 · 09/06/2016 23:53

When I was 7 months pregnant, my DH told me that he was leaving me as he loved someone else. I was walking home one day ftom work when a man said "Cheer up love, it might never happen". Hmm

shabbs · 10/06/2016 00:36

'Trying' for a baby for what seemed like years.....with lots of unhelpful comments. Having very unexpected twin boys - losing one of those precious lads when he was 6 months old. Moving house. Getting pregnant again 2 years later.....beautiful 3yrd son. Move forward 7 years and DS3 is killed by a reversing lorry delivering pop to the estate. 6 years later DS4 was born. So 4DS's and only two here. Wish I had a penny for everybody who said 'you are so brave' (I'm not) - 'I couldnt have lived through all that! (maybe you couldnt but somehow I did).......etc, etc, etc. Sometimes a hug is all that is needed.

LondonStill83 · 10/06/2016 00:46

Gosh some of these are just heartbreaking. I am glad women have each other!

I have many sad ones but actually it was a positive one which jumped out at me.

I was once in a pub, playing pool, when a girl came over to me. She said "I am so sorry to bother you, but I think I saw you once before, you were at X restaurant with a woman, maybe your mom?"

I said yes, my mom and I had been there.

She continued "well I wanted to come over at the time but didn't want to interrupt. I hope you don't think it's weird but I really wanted to say that you have such a nice energy and your smile just lights up a room."

Ermmm...thank you!!?!??

An elderly lady also stopped my ex and I as we were getting ready to cycle home after a street event. She said "enjoy this, this kind of love doesn't come around for many people". We since split up (amicably) and actually, I think she is right! I have met and loved two amazing men in my time, that ex and my DH.

IsItIorAreTheOthersCrazy · 10/06/2016 03:00

Sad ones:
Ex - "I keep you around because you do what I say. I don't want you though"

At my nans funeral, as we were all filing out of the church, I heard a bit of a commotion. My stoic auntie was just sat there refusing to move. My mum tried to get her stood up and said "we need to leave now X. We have to go" and my auntie replied "I can't, then she'll
Be gone." It was done so quietly but I'll always remember my aunties face as she said it.

The dr at the fertility clinic, when I went in to get results. "Well you have a problem and you're going to need treatment."

Good ones:
DM when I finally told her about abusive ex "And he's perfect is he? Stand behind me, I'll protect you."

Someone I used to work with (I was his support worker - he was schizophrenic and asd traits) "Isit you taught me how to cook eggs. I wasn't allowed to use the cooker before. You're cool. And I promise I won't catch any fires." You're not supposed to have favourites but he was lovely - had been overly babied by his parents and was desperate to be as independent as possible.

Dnephew "I'll live with you auntie Isit, I'll keep you safe" He is 5.

DH "if you could see you like I do, you'd know you could kick ass" Smile

Hirosleaftunnel · 10/06/2016 04:31

Forward not back.

MyCatWasRightAboutYou · 10/06/2016 06:33

"What's up, little chick?" My mum. She passed away when I was 15. I can still hear her voice when I think about it. Smile