Gotta tell you, I’m feeling a little vindicated here. Couple of years ago I wrote this piece about ‘hello’, one of the most powerful little words I know.

Hola in Guyabidos.

Hallo in Munich.

Ciao in Roma.

Bonjour in Paris.

Hej in Stockholm.

Hello in Chicago.

No matter the language, it is the same all over the world, ‘hello’ is a question.

“Would you like to talk with me?”

Of course the answer can vary, but as often as not it leads to a connection, sometimes with a perfect stranger.

For me, it is one of the most powerful words I know. And the payoff can be huge.

“Hello”, I addressed a woman sitting on the next lounge chair. It was January and my wife Mac and I were in San Pancho, a small ocean side town in Mexico about twenty minutes north of Sayulita on the Pacific coast. It was a beautiful warm sunny day, the waves crashing rhythmically, pelicans fishing along the beach with their usual purpose.

I had not yet met the woman I had said, “hello” to, it was just a polite non intrusive salutation that would, I knew, unlock the answer to the unstated question, “Would you like to talk to me?”.

“Hello”, came her quick reply, the tone providing my answer. And we began what became a three hour conversation, one of the most engaging I have ever had with what was essentially a perfect stranger. Mac was sitting beside me, engrossed in a novel. I made sure Mac knew she was welcome to join in but she demurred. She was in her happy place and she knew I was in mine, her friendly, curious, talkative Tony had found his match.

Johna Townshend (her father had wanted a boy he was going to call John) was retired and in San Pancho with her husband Kent, who was off swimming and running on the beach. Johna told me that Kent was actually training for a two week trek that summer up the White Pass and Chilkoot Trail, the old Gold Rush trail in the Yukon. Impressive enough as that was to me, made all the more so when I learned Kent was 73. He was to be trekking with his thirteen year old son.

“Pardon me,” said my inside voice, “Did you say your son is thirteen.” There had to be a story here. And there was. Johna and Kent lived in California and had retired two years earlier. They had a 43 year old son living in Utah who had died after a lifelong battle with addiction, leaving his son Myles with his mother. It was all too much for her and after six years in and out of treatment for addiction she gave up custody of Myles to Johna and Kent who then adopted Myles. So here they were with a lifetime of dreaming about retirement and the things they would do, parenting a thirteen year old boy. I left with a real respect for these two perfect strangers and a refreshed enthusiasm for this most muscular of little words, ‘hello’.

“Hello” I said to the newcomer to the ‘10am Small Dog Dog Park Group in West Kelowna’, “How are you?.” I was just being friendly, it hadn’t been too long since I was just such a newcomer, bringing a very young Edith, our new French bulldog to the park for some socializing. Turns out Brad had a story and he was keen to tell it.

He had been a seventeen year old kid working up north (forgive me if any seventeen year old grandchildren are reading this, I mean no offence, it’s just that I’m seventy-three and seventeen is young, to me). The sea ice mid winter in the Arctic Ocean is twenty five feet thick, strong enough to bear the weight of a military aircraft or a commercial jet. Brad was wildcatting in the Arctic on the oil derricks several kilometres out on the ice. He was sent to pick up men from a jet bringing in 135 replacement workers and was witness to one of the worst aviation disasters in Canadian history. The plane landed on the ice but the pilot miscalculated and overshot the thick ice on the runway and broke into the ocean.

Most of the men perished and Brad raced out with other rescuers to try and save some of the men. They managed to save two men before the plane disappeared into the waves. Good Lord, my eyes were as big as saucers, I had known Brad for maybe fifteen minutes and been told an absolutely stunning story.

“God how terrible. How did you deal with that?” I asked the obvious question. “I was seventeen.” he answered, “I was too young to know any better. It hit me harder when I got older.” What a story and it was all because I had said, “Hello.”

“Hello” I said to the woman as Mac and I were walking down to The Spit at Deep Bay, one early Spring day. She was hard at work weeding her garden.

“Hello” she replied, hungry for connection, in those isolating Covid pandemic years. And before a minute had passed she was sharing a very sad story with us about her daughter. This was in May 2021 and she had not seen her daughter for two years. Her daughter was a cardiologist in Calgary and was raising her young family there and she had contracted the Covid 19 coronavirus. It had devastated her body. Now two years later she had suffered brain damage, organ failure and paralysis on her left side and been told she had no hope of recovery. Ever. It is hard to write this, it almost feels invasive but she wanted to share her story. It was hard for her. She stifled tears in the telling but she got to speak with us and to hear our voices in reply. Not all conversations are easy but all talking is. After about twenty minutes we moved on, touched and humbled by her story. And I was reminded, again, what a big lovely word ‘hello’ really is.

“Hello” I said to the friendly looking woman at the Departure Bay dog park in Nanaimo. ‘Hello’ has a high success rate at dog parks. I think it may have something to do with the kind of people who own dogs and who take them to dog parks to socialize. Anyway, random theories aside, within moments she told me she’d just won a million dollars. I had two reactions; one expressed by my inner voice “Sure, and I own three homes“, the second expressed by my outside voice “What are you doing telling a perfect stranger at a dog park that you just won a million dollars”.

But who was I to strip a perfect stranger from her fantasy world. I told Skeptical Tony to be quiet and allowed Inquisitive Tony to be heard.

“That is fantastic news.”

“I know, all my life I’ve lived from month to month. I’m a single mom and have so much debt.” It came pouring out of her, her relief palpable and it seemed authentic. Literally, five minutes earlier I had never even spoken to this woman.

“Here” she said, “look at this.” She showed me a screenshot of her bank account. It showed $1,000,045.14

I smiled. Skeptical Tony was literally laughing at me. But Inquisitive Tony had the floor.

“What’s the $45.14?”

“What I had in my account when I won!” I was still uncertain but the fantasy, real or otherwise was fun to chat about.

“My name is Tony by the way.”

“Good to meet you Tony, I’m Cheryl.”

“Well, I’m off then, great talking to you Cheryl. And listen, don’t be telling any more strangers about winning a million dollars.”

Of course I told my wife about the encounter and this woman I’d met and her tale of winning a $1,000,000 and even in the telling I remember thinking how far fetched it must have sounded.

And then there it was. Two days later the headline on a local TV news website:

“LADYSMITH WOMAN WINS A MILLIONS DOLLARS” and a photo of Cheryl Gourley, my Departure Bay dog park friend.

‘Hello’ had done it again.

So how through all these anecdotes can you see why I feel vindicated. Here’s the thing. The simple act of saying ‘hello’ is now being recognized as one of the key factors impacting our social, emotional and mental health. A just released Gallup poll says people who say ‘hello’ to a stranger regularly (up to six times a day) have a higher sense of well being. Coupled with that people who say ‘hello’ regularly report a more positive connection to their community/neighbourhood. 16 to 29 year olds are reporting a higher sense of loneliness than in previous decades. That can be no surprise. Smartphones are a likely culprit, so engaging is the content it succeeds in keeping our heads down looking at a screen as we walk by other people. You can’t say ‘hello’ to anyone if you haven’t seen them. You can’t hear ‘hello’ if you’re wearing ear buds. Before you know it you feel isolated and alone. Because you are, self imposed as that may be.

In the Swedish town of Lulea, (loo-lee-uh) a town of 80,000 about 150 kms. north of the Arctic Circle there is a campaign to get residents to say ‘hello’ to one another, ‘hej’ in Swedish. Asa Koski, a social strategist with the municipality created the campaign which is being messaged on social platforms, local media and in schools.

“Swedes” she says “are quiet, respectful people. We keepp to ourselves. It is just not in our nature to say ‘hello’ to strangers or even neighbours, so that has lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. We know this simple word ‘hej’ (hey!) will have an impact on that.”

As I am writing this my house is very quiet. Well, other than the rythmic snoring of our French Bulldog Edith that is. My wife is away for the week on a course and our house is empty. Empty and so quiet and after just a few days that emptiness has washed over me. I feel uneasy in my loneliness. I don’t like it of course, although I can always drop down to the Departure Bay Dog Park in Nanaimo BC and meet up with my mates. Plenty of noise there, what between dogs barking and the generally inane conversation of a bunch of seventy year olds.

“Hello” I said to a new visitor to the dog park. Question asked, her answer was immediate.

“I’ve just moved from Winnipeg. My husband died three years ago. My fiance was a US Army Ranger. He has bad lungs, they dropped him into a blazing building on his last mission. He was just robbed though. $100,000. Says he knows ‘somebody’ who can find the people who did it. I told him I didn’t want to know anything about that.”

I know right. Who knows how much of it was true. The truth belongs to the story teller but she just wanted to talk. For her my ‘hello’ was all she needed to hear.

I love that word. Just five letters and one of the most powerful words I know.

Or three if you’re Swedish.

Hej.”