People always remember three things about you. Your smile can’t hide whether you’re offering these gifts or not. Warm embraces, laughter and compliments won’t work either. Despite effort to hide, people know if these blessings are being offered.

Emotions play a big role in all three.

Yet, fact is, as powerful as emotions are, they cannot always be trusted. That doesn’t mean they don’t carry substantial weight. In this aspect, emotions are like memories. They come. They go, and change, as if mere illusions. Yet, people never forget what they feel strongly.

Things About You People Always Remember

Maya Angelou expressed it well when she said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” How true.

A kind word falls flat for the listener who does not feel appreciated. However, a vigorous smile embodying the belief “You can do it”, a genuine gesture that cuts across generations, culture and language, can stay with a person forever, empowering her to seek another solution when she feels depleted.

Frankly, this is when emotions are truly powerful. They add a layer of ingenuity to words, actions. They create reliable memories, recollections that stir us even in old age. Consider it. Rare is the depth and longevity of the impact of how one person makes another feel. It is why the way people make you feel is one of the three things that people always remember.

Emotions Unbreakable Cord

In fact, children and elders approach or step back, creating a distance that mirrors the emotional tie someone has had on them, each time they happen upon that person — all potentially rooted in a single emotional experience. Humans witness this dynamic unfolding while eating, playing, laboring or resting. It is like a wheel that never stops spinning, never stops turning.

All interactions considered, the relationships that parents have with their children may be the deepest, most pivotal and empowering. Ask the mother of a 60-year-old to describe her child. Let that mother and child share a warm, loving relationship and the mother’s eyes might brighten as she starts to talk about her child, an act that may go on for more than an hour.

On the other hand, regardless of the goodness in a parent and child’s relationship, a child will remember his parent. These memories may cut, digging up deep wounds, or the memories may soothe and protect, springing forth with reassurance and trust. What these memories won’t do is go away.

Where Roots Are Placed

Distance and absence cannot severe the cord between a parent and a child. In fact, years may have passed since the two saw each other or spoke. But that bond is yet there, making a child or a parent the second of the three things that people always remember.

Home is the place where deep feelings and lasting memories take root. A home may be mobile or stationary. Design, structure and furnishings may run the gamut. And that’s okay. Because it’s not design or style that give a home impact. Yet, those too will be remembered.

It’s what regularly happens in a space that lends that place a sense of home. Fill a home with trust, assurance, laughter and care and life changing experiences could blossom, none to be forgotten.

In fact, home (the third thing that people always remember) is a blend of rich emotions between parent and child. In addition, home is bedrock as it relates to how people make us feel. Mulukan discovers this early. She is a mere six years old when she is uprooted from the only people, the only place, she has ever known. Her journey is hard, unforgiving.

And yet, she survives. After all, Mulukan (like you, like me) is blessed with the three things that people always remember. It’s what she does with those three things that makes the difference in her life. Treat yourself to Mulukan’s story. Then, consider what use you are making of the three things that people always remember. Are you using those three things to harm yourself, to set yourself back, to keep yourself stuck or to strengthen yourself and, like Mulukan, blossom, thrive and advance.