Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Looking at other people's lives........

I was doing a show on the weekend and at the next table to me was an older lady with a table full of her old Christmas figurines and porcelain Christmas trees.

My initial impression of her was that she had, had a hard life,  She was all of 4 feet 10 inches (she told me later how tall she was), had a huge hump on her back (due to various surgeries, again told me about that) and looked around 80 years old.

It turned out she was much younger; don't know the exact age, and had a son in his mid 30's that had tested her throughout his life, especially through those high school years.  What he got up too was lots of stories, and he was in and out of trouble throughout those years.  He'd turned his life around though and was a manager at a local business and she was very, very proud of him and rightly so.

She had gone through numerous life altering illnesses and as I told her, "I am quite sure you should have been a cat, having nine lives."

Despite lots of set backs she was a positive woman, who made a point of helping out others, and had an open door policy for some of the neighbourhood kids that she had unofficially adopted as her grandchildren.  She had two dogs, both rescues and one had numerous neurological problems due to abuse and a cat.  She loved them to the moon and back.

The more I talked to her the more I admired her.  She had made the best of what life had thrown at her and still had a smile on her face............we all should take a leaf from her book I think........

6 comments:

Karen said...

Yes, we should all defer our judgement if we don't know the story. There is so much more to a person than what we see.

Maggie said...

You never know what people have had to deal with in their lives and everyone copes in different ways. I suppose the old saying 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' is true.

Chris said...

What a thoughtful quote. Thanks for sharing.

William Kendall said...

Very well said.

Winifred said...

That was a lovely inspiring post Gill. Thanks for sharing it.

Rose said...

This is a great post...I would have loved to meet her.

{{{SIGH}}}

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