"If you want to enjoy life, you can, it's free!"
A stranger told me the above quote. She was one of the most wonderful and lovely strangers I've ever had an encounter with.
I was at work on a slow Sunday afternoon, and this beautiful older woman, probably in her seventies, had come up to the register for me to cash her out. She had picked out a few blouses and a pair of shoes. After having some small talk and finishing her transaction, she looked at me, almost examining me, for a few brief seconds.
I'm not going to lie, I was a little sketched out by the visual exchange, but nonetheless, I maintained my smile and told her to have a wonderful day. She was about to walk away, but then she turned back around and resumed conversation with me. She told me that I reminded her of her granddaughter that she had lost a few years ago.
"I never got a chance to tell her all of the things about life she should know."
That sentence broke my entire heart. I told her that I'm sorry her granddaughter didn't get a chance to learn from someone with such wisdom. I told her that I'd love to hear some advice because it's better to put it out there in the universe than to keep it bottled inside of you.
I spent about ten minutes talking to this stranger, because that's what she was, a stranger.
From that exchange with this kindhearted stranger, I learned so much. I learned that you shouldn't hesitate to tell the person you love how you feel about them. I learned that you should always say goodbye to someone you love because you never know when your last goodbye is going to be. I learned that time truly is of the essence.
She stressed the importance of showing kindness to everyone around you, especially those who you know don't like you to begin with. She told me that it's not so much that you should do it in spite of them, or that you should "kill them with kindness," but it's more about the fact you shouldn't let someone compromise how you treat other people. Everyone deserves to be treated with the same level of respect and love.
"Always have a backup plan, because life isn't fair"
She talked to me about her health issues, and how she had a stroke and they didn't think she'd recover from her losses of function. I could see the sadness and fear still in her eyes as she spoke about her medical issues. But then, as she started speaking about the aftermath of her issues, her eyes filled back up with shining light. She told me that her stroke was the best thing to happen to her. She told me it made her fall back in love with the concept of being alive.
I wish I could recall every detail from our conversation because it was such a powerful and moving exchange, but I can't.
I think what she wanted me to get from our talk was that life is short. And she couldn't be more correct.
Life is this wonderful gift that we are all given, and being kind human beings costs absolutely nothing at all. Too often do we take our own existence for granted. We focus too much of our time, effort, and energy into things that don't really matter. We need to spend more time being happy with the life were given because there's always someone else who has it worse.
I want to say thank you kind stranger, because of you, I now have a completely different outlook on life.
Stay positive, my friends.
