Funeral

Today I went to a funeral. The thirteen year old son of a colleague had died. He was severely handicapped, physically and mentally, but evidently made a huge impression on a lot of lives. The room was packed with people waiting to offer their condolences.
My colleague is not religious, so the memorial service was more of a remembering of who her son was and how he had impacted lives around him. I came expecting to see very few people and left surprised and maybe also a bit humbled by the amount of people that were there.
Writing about it now makes me realize that I often give too much value to peoples opinion of me. I seem to crave recognition from a lot of people, not just a few. But this boy, despite (or probably because of) his handicaps managed to touch a lot of people. From the taxi driver who drove him to school, to one of his fathers students who only saw him a couple of times. His smile and cheerfulness were enough, words were not neccesary. I guess he was a good example of "letting your light shine".