I lost a friend this week. He was only 36.

I didn’t want to go to his funeral. But I’m glad I did. Really glad.

My friend was a gifted communicator and his very words were projected onto large screens to the thousands at his service. Some of the words I had never heard before, but some were so familiar to me that, frankly, I didn’t really realize that those were first his.

I then began to think about my own words. Are my words ones that lift others up and, as was said of my friend, show that I see “the butterfly in the caterpillar”?

Then I began to think about the words people hear from our stations. What words define us? What words do people remember? What words have meaning?

Next week I’ll share the words that listeners have shared about one specific radio station.

Motivational speaker Benjamin Zander shares the story of a 15-year-old girl and her brother who were loaded into a freight car to be taken off to a concentration camp in Auschwitz in World War II.

Along the way the sister noticed that her younger brother’s shoes were missing and she began to chide him for being so irresponsible. The train soon stopped and the children were separated. Those criticizing words would be the last that she would ever say to her brother.

Years later as she walked from that camp to her freedom she vowed that she would “never say anything that couldn’t stand as the last thing I ever say.”

Zander concludes, “Can we do that? No… but it is a possibility to live into.”

What would people say about your radio station? Let’s discuss in next week’s Frost Advisory #185 – Funeral for a Friend, Part Two.