Tuesdays with Morrie

I love my netflix and once in a while I get a Great movie in the mail. "Tuesdays with Morrie" is wonderful. It's about an older professor who is dieing and he offers thoughts on many different topics with relevence to the meaning of life. Ideas we can all appreciate, very touching and human.
The movie reminded me of a gentleman I use to work with in La Jolla. Ray was in his early 80's and had been working for Mrs. Scripps for 40 years as a grounds keeper and all around fix it guy. Interesting enough, I worked there on Tuesdays. I started out thinking I knew more than him, I was committed to gardening all organic and he had his own ways and ideas, I resented the old guy telling me what to do, after all I was educated in horticulture. Over many months a friendship grew and he began telling me stories of his life. Living in Mission Beach in the 50's, fighting in WWII, learning to fly just 40 miles from my hometown, Paris, Texas, his first wife leaving him after the war, heartbreaks and joys, a new wife and no children. I often thought I should write his stories down but was busy and told myself it was a silly idea, I'm not a writer after all. After working with him for 3 years, I became pregnant with Lucy and after I was too large to bend over and actually work in the gardens, we just sat and talked, we had lunch and he told me his concerns and stories, we had a lovely time. Ray was a sweet man. I had never had a friendship with an elder person. I wasn't very close to my 2 grandparents. After I had Lucy, I got busy with a newborn then our family got more busy planning to move to Texas. I kept meaning to go visit Ray and introduce him to Lucy but just never made it, he had a an appointment or I had something to do and we just kept missing each other. I strongly regret not making more of an effort to see him. I wrote him a couple letters from Texas and when I went back to San Diego for the winter I finally made the time to visit him and it was too late, there was another person working there. Ray had passed away only a couple months before. I am so sad I let myself become too busy to go visit with a dear friend and tell him what he meant to me. How often do we let someone come close to us and over time get busy with other stuff? We are so scared and often feel too silly and meaningless to say the things that are important. How much our friends and family mean to us. Why are we so scared to express love and recieve love?