Hmmm.. what makes a person a good person... lets go with heart and intent shall we?
For brevity sake, I'm not including anyone I haven't spoken to in the last year or passing acquaintances.
1) My sister
Generally a good person, always tries hard, always means well, cant help but help others, even her career path is about helping others, and has such a huge capacity for forgiveness and tolerance. Just generally a good person.
2) My Grandfather
Friendly, kind, hard worker, generally a good guy, though if his wife were still alive she would head this list, and he would agree.
3) My Coworker "RR" (Initials for anonymity)
Extremely hard worker, friendly, always willing to help, but that pure willingness to help ends up putting a lot of pressure and work onto him.
4) My Boss
Excepting when he has to be a a*****e as part of being a boss, he is almost like a dad to his employees, a little overbearing, a prolific micromanager, but also generous and friendly, and willing to give people a day off at the drop of a hat if they need it, he makes sure everyone puts in their expenses claims so no one ends up short changed, and even paying for maintenance on my PRIVATE car because I end up claiming least out of everyone, on my last birthday he took out the entire office to this great restaurant, which he does for each employee and for christmas. Just generally a good-guy boss.
(Though in his a*****e boss moments he can be incredibly difficult to deal with)
5) Sam
She works for one of our clients, she kinda had a thing for me for a while, but aside from a mutual love for annoying people, we had nothing at ALL in common... still, she is friendly, very social, and has done a LOT for her family, (a situation entirely not her cousin's fault meant that her cousin's kid got taken by the police, to keep her in the family Sam became a Foster carer so she could raise her cousin's Kid until it is sorted out)
6) Dan
He is THAT guy in ANY setting he finds himself in, he is the guy who hasnt started packing until the taxi comes to pick him up, the guy who always puts his foot in his mouth, the guy who WILL lose whatever you lend him, the guy who just doesnt get social dynamics, the guy who gets shit dumped on him all the time, the guy who, if there is a group of guys going out to have fun and one of them does something stupid or messes up somehow, HE is always that guy. He doesnt mean to be but FUCK he couldnt do it better if it was by design. Despite all this, he is, at heart, a good guy, better than his friends at least.
7) My Aunt "AD" (Initials for anonymity)
She was an uber-high-powered lawyer before she retired, which has given her expensive taste, the means to back it up, and an uncompromising nature, luckily, this last part has softened significantly in recent years and I have gotten to know her. She is a lovely and EXCEEDINGLY generous person. She spends most of her retirement buying gifts for the people she knows, and luckily due to her profession she is a VERY sharp judge of character so has never allowed any gold digger types close.
8) My cousins, "GF" and "KF" (Initials for anonymity)
Among an entire extended family consisting almost exclusively of goody-two-shoes (and one supreme bitch) these two are by far my favourites, they are good people, like most of that side of the family, but they have a cynical side which makes them just great to spend time with, good people with a cynical sense of humour are exactly my kind of people, and they really are good people, in sharp contrast to their mother, the supreme bitch mentioned above. (They agree with that assessment)
9) My Brother in Law
My sister's Husband, the same sister mentioned above, he doesnt form strong attachments with many people, even family, if his aunt died he wouldnt be fussed, but he is kind and friendly regardless, and to those he DOES form a strong attachment to he is incredibly caring, so much so that he also tries to help and look after anyone THEY care about. He can be dysfunctional and difficult, but the way he cares about my sister definitely puts him in my "good people" list.
10) My sister in Law
My brother's fiance (I know not truly "in law" but they have been engaged for over 10 years, they have a shared bank account, own a house together and have a cat, they are essentially married) She is kind of a blank slate, impossible to get to know, I have known her for a decade and I still cant tell you what her likes and dislikes are, and the only way I can come up with presents for her at christmas and birthday is to ask my brother. She is just so incredibly agreeable with everyone that we can never figure out which things she enjoys because others enjoy them and which she enjoys because SHE enjoys them.
11) My dad
He only makes it onto this list because of his INTENT to be good. In his heart he is a great guy, really, and the things he will do for others proves this, but at the same time he is so incompatible with human beings, dysfunctional, and oblivious to the harm he does that he breaks most people who live with him for more than a week (even on a business trip abroad)
12) My Brother
He is boarderline, 5 or 10 years ago, I would NOT have put him on this list, I regularly summed him up in 1 word: "****", because though he is kind and friendly and responsible on the surface, he was always a duplicitous self-centred **** underneath. He has changed recently, or maybe since we have been getting on so much better lately that I can manage to turn a blind eye to the few remaining glimpses of **** I still see through the cracks, who knows, but anyway, he barely makes the list.
Honourable mentions:
1) A friend from my church back at university, I found him so INCREDIBLY annoying that the only way I could call him my friend is because he was such an INCREDIBLY great guy that it made up for how annoying he was, and then some.
2) My sister's Ex Boyfriend, his sister, and his parents. They are truly special people, kind, pure, gentle, giving, the textbook example of what Christians are SUPPOSED to be but never reach, you talk to this family and you will wonder how the hell such a family of genuinely pure and loving people could exist in the current age. Even though they broke up, my sister's Ex's whole family still considers her family and my family considers him family.
3) My grandmother (mentioned above in number 2) she died several years ago, but she was just an incredible person, kind, devout (without being pushy) more selfless than anyone I have ever imagined, and STUBBORN AS ALL HELL! I'm not overly emotional when it comes to death, people die, it happens, and when there is no one to blame, I accept it readily, usually without pain, but even I was surprised just how much it hurt when she died, I truly feel like a part of me died with her, I wish I had spent more time with her when she was alive.
