Thanks Silvers,
I want to start out the new me with an old story. Some have heard this story, but I didn't share it here on the forum, it is very personal. I hope it touches someone today.
Background: On the subject of solo guests and how important they are and should be treated with extra TLC. We tried to attract single female business travelers, some would stay with us and tell me where they were going for the day in case they didn't return, as an extra security measure.
We comp'd one stay who felt like the ugly stepchild as I was busy cooking and serving, and she was the only non-coupled guest at the table, from that day on I made sure single or solo travelers received MORE attention from the innkeeper. I was upset she felt that way, of course it wasn't my job to make her fit in, or was it?
Why Single Guests Matter
We had a single guest (she drove a jeep with military sticker we noticed was Pentagon). She was here alone, never said two words. Two nights. I gave her space, but smiled and treated her with warm hospitality. Sunday at check-out she asked me where we go to church, so I told her. We got there late, as we always did after other rooms left. We raced in and sat down midway, I happened to see her in the back row as I raced by.
The very next week we got a card from her.
She had been in Afghanistan and had seen and done things, she said, that were so horrific that she couldn't live with it any longer. She had come here to end her life. She was all alone and had her gun in her room, she wrote. She said she felt something here she couldn't pinpoint. She didn't end her life and instead decided to ask me where we went to church and went, she wrote. And was thanking us for saving her life.
I have the card she sent, saved.
True story
It was at that point that I realized this was no regular business, we touched lives we knew or didn't know about. What a responsibility. But in reality we all have this same one, we all touch lives wherever we are, and we never really know it.
Also, I mentioned this to people who go to church. Maybe consider a back-pew ministry, as people stumble in who are hurting, and you just never know. Not to go after them, but to maybe quietly pray for them..
I am here to say we made it out alive, it was doubtful for a while there, but here I am. Good tidings to each one of you in this new year of which we have just begun.
