Sometimes it’s the words not heard that are either the most meaningful or the most forlorn. One morning not long ago I stood with our 18-month old daughter as she looked out an upstairs window. It was dark, but she could see the lights of a school bus in the distance. As the bus came closer to our home and then drove by, she waved and said in the sweetest voice imaginable: “Bye.” She didn’t know anyone on the bus, and the bus didn’t stop at our house. She simply saw it, waved, and said her heart-felt one-word sentence. I thought to myself–if only every person on that bus could know that she wished them the very, very best. How much better, warmer, more emboldened would they feel? If I had been them and I had discovered her greeting, I know my day would have been a little brighter. As it was, I felt better hearing her and yet also slightly sad that they would never know what she said.

Some words aren’t said. But some words are indeed said and yet not heard.