“When I die I want to have made a difference,” my friend Adrianne said to me at our writer’s retreat. It got me thinking. Have I made a difference in anyone’s life? I like to think I have but then again have I really?

Unless someone comes up to us and tells us, how do we know? Do we need to know? Why is this important to so many people? Perhaps it shows we thought of others, that our time on this Earth stood for something instead of just mindless day by day activities.

We hear on TV and in magazine stories of how one person made such a huge impact on a person or community. They are good feel stories that makes me want to be one of those people. But it doesn’t have to be a big splash. I would be okay with a little ripple if it means I helped someone to the point it changed an aspect of their lives.

It is not something I think on often until I hear someone mention it to me. I do give to charities, the ones that mean something to me. But is this the same thing, can I bank on this meaning I am making a change? I’m not sure. I just know when I am being lowered into the ground I want to have made a dent in one person’s life, regardless who they are. For to me, it means I mattered.