My recently deceased mother had a talent for talking to anyone at any time in any language. She's always been incredibly social and could establish connections with strangers very rapidly. One time she brought in a school teacher/sheep farmer from Dagestan selling yarn from his sheep's wool, she met him at the market and bought all yarn and asked if he had somewhere to stay before going back, and he didn't. He stayed in our house for a couple of nights, and then we visited him in that little village in mountains of Dagestan on a summer vacation, talk about going back a few centuries in time, an incredible and unusual experience.

I've had to spend week and a half battling Gmail daily email account limits sending batches of 500 emails just to notify people in her address book, receiving hundreds of responses. Her memorial was attended by hundreds of people.

It served her very well in her chosen career of real estate sales, although I think she'd might have done really well in community organizing or even politics where those skills are also very useful.

On the flip side, it was sometimes difficult to be there as family wanting some attention, since her bright light was always shining in many directions.

I've inherited just some of that talent, and I think it is a talent, but trainable.

I miss her already.