Wisdom

Yesterday was Christmas and I was at work...it's okay, because our family celebrate this holiday on the eve of and not on the day itself. 

Mrs. Anon is an 83 year old woman who was admitted due to burnout and some tell tale signs of developing dementia, she lives on her own. Although she had 4 children who lives in the same town, not one of them visited her yesterday and it was Christmas (sigh).

I was there and because it wasn't busy I whiled my time away chatting with her. We sat in her room watching her favourite film The Sound of Music, and we laughed and sniffled some tears during sad parts and shared a Christmas cracker together- she was a bit upset because there was no toy inside except for a paper crown! to which I immediately remembered I have my favourite chocolate in my bag (a Kinder Bueno), I took it out and gave her the bar, which she delightfully unwrapped like a little kid. 

Anyway, she talked quite a bit about her life and she told me that there are no fast rules to stick with except that we just have to try our best, and even then there are no guarantees. I feel priveleged that she would trust me with her life stories, she told me she hasn't got anyone to talk to for awhile. She talked about her children and her husband who passed away, about her trying her darn hardest to do that which is right...I was able to pick up from her stories that the husband has not been a good one to her but she remained faithful to him. There are so many more but somehow I find it difficult to transcribe her stories in words...I just felt it in my heart.

 But there is one thing that I guess I could write about:

She told me how as young children and even as teenagers, we all had airy-fairy ideas about the perfect life- we have made up a mental list of what our perfect man should be, what our perfect child is made out of, our dream house, dream job, etcetera... but sometimes we get unrealistic that we go out of our boundaries to achieve our idealizations. We push our dream on our children, on our husbands or partners and on ourselves that we no longer enjoy the journey of life. That there is no such thing as a perfect family, or person, or life because every soul born into the world is different. We just have to take life each day, we just need to plod on...

Wise words indeed. I now know for certain, that every person we cross paths with in life is not coincidental. We share our wisdom along the way.