Page 16 - Voices March 2018

TERRY TALKS

I’m Waiting . . .

Please Respond

Angels Come into Our Lives to Give Us Wings

Terry Beard

Driving through Central Oregon on a four-hour protocol; what it is and what it is not.
car ride, my wife Pascale, niece Lilia and I had In France, developing friends is like fine
plenty of time to chat and to drill down to some wine, it takes time. Once you have discovered
deeper understanding of an all-too-common a precious friend, comme un bijou, (like a

behavior pattern in the USA. jewel) in France it is serious business. If a friend
“Lilia, you deserve better,” I said. “Suzy-Q is reaches out to you in France, sans doute, you
not playing communication ping-pong with you. get back to them tout de suite—right away.
You were led to believe that if you reached out to Lilia was shocked. She thought that she had

her that she would get back to you. You pinged a new American friend. Her questions about
(texted) her, and she has not responded—no
pong, no ping-pong. Forget it.
You cannot count on her, there is and will

not be any social security consistency in that
relationship. Her failure to get back to you is
really non-verbal discouragement. She’ll get
back to you eventually full of excuses. The alibis

list will be endless. The excuse will start off, her
saying, ‘I am so sorry I got very busy, yadda
yadda, yadda.”
During the time she stayed with us, I was

reminded by her questions of the cultural
differences between the USA and France. In our
conversations, I found that she spotted some of
the cultural differences and questioned me on

occasion about communication ping-pong. In the
process of sharing with her what I thought about
communication, I discovered much that further
sensitized me to what is good communication

16 ONE COMMUNITY