I went to the optician the other day, because my mum had new glasses done for her, and I went along with her to get them. I like the optician guy, Pierre. I've known him since I’m 3 or 4 years old and he has seen me grow up. Anyway, I think the feeling is mutual and I always enjoy a chat with him.
We waited for about an hour, while he was making her glasses, chatting and remembering. He told me he called his wife “my journey to the USA”. I found it intriguing and asked him why. He then started to tell me the story on how he met his wife. While he started to tell me the story I was already imagining he met his wife in the USA, which would have been quite a story for a couple of French persons who are now in their early sixties with five children now all grown-ups.
To my surprised he said he was doing seasonal work on the Bassin d’Arcachon (on the Atlantic costs, south-west of France, at 30 miles from Bordeaux) over the summer, just before the start of university. He had planned to work during July and August and go off to the USA for September before starting university the following month.
But he told me he never flew to the USA, because while he was working he met a pretty girl working in a beauty salon and so he ended up spending all the money he had earned and saved up to seduce her and later on... marry her. And so she became his journey to the USA. I think it was a lovely story, especially since their couple is still strong today, and since they had five kids together and lived many more memorable and fantastic adventures together.
Hearing such stories is quite comforting, especially when you are loosing faith in love and what comes with it. I cannot deny that ending up a spinster was never my aim in life… But, I did so much for love, and got so little back, that I am now genuinely disenchanted.
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| Is love that random? |
Few months back, I had difficulties living with myself and accepting what was happening to me… Surprisingly another person, even more random this time, give me the cutest, most beautiful testimony about hope, endurance and love.
I arrived at the doctor’s appointment and sat in the waiting room. There already was a nice lady waiting, she looked very elegant and charming, she was blond and probably close to her 70’s. She was crippled and so her husband had accompanied her. However, he had left her on her own because they had guests waiting at home. She went inside the doctor's office, and came back to wait for the anaesthetic effects of the eye drops to kick in. She sat in front of me and started talking to me and another women sitting there too. Once that woman’s turn arrived, I found myself alone with the charming and talkative lady. She told me about her declining health, laughing at herself and life. She told me about my home town, Mérignac, where she lived from a very young age, but also about Bordeaux. I asked her to tell me about life here in the 1950’s and 1960's, when she was a kid and growing up as a young lady. I was nice to listen to her.
My turn came up, but just like her, I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for the anaesthetic to be fully operational. She was still there, waiting for her husband whom she started to describe as the most formidable man. She told me she had been married before when she was 25. But her first husband was a “nasty man, violent and difficult to handle” (these words are hers). She continued saying that 25 years old is young and that at this age it can still be difficult to make the right choices. She told me that after a few years she divorced, a very difficult time in her life despite the ‘ugliness’ of the man she had married. With a big smile she carried on explaining that she remarried when she was 36 and ONLY THEN she had "the time of her life".
I arrived at the doctor’s appointment and sat in the waiting room. There already was a nice lady waiting, she looked very elegant and charming, she was blond and probably close to her 70’s. She was crippled and so her husband had accompanied her. However, he had left her on her own because they had guests waiting at home. She went inside the doctor's office, and came back to wait for the anaesthetic effects of the eye drops to kick in. She sat in front of me and started talking to me and another women sitting there too. Once that woman’s turn arrived, I found myself alone with the charming and talkative lady. She told me about her declining health, laughing at herself and life. She told me about my home town, Mérignac, where she lived from a very young age, but also about Bordeaux. I asked her to tell me about life here in the 1950’s and 1960's, when she was a kid and growing up as a young lady. I was nice to listen to her.
My turn came up, but just like her, I was sent back to the waiting room to wait for the anaesthetic to be fully operational. She was still there, waiting for her husband whom she started to describe as the most formidable man. She told me she had been married before when she was 25. But her first husband was a “nasty man, violent and difficult to handle” (these words are hers). She continued saying that 25 years old is young and that at this age it can still be difficult to make the right choices. She told me that after a few years she divorced, a very difficult time in her life despite the ‘ugliness’ of the man she had married. With a big smile she carried on explaining that she remarried when she was 36 and ONLY THEN she had "the time of her life".
Her husband arrived to pick her up; she welcomed him cheerfully, telling the audience in the waiting room that her “lover” had arrived. Although I found out she never had children and regretted it, and that she had also lost her younger sister who died at the age of 12, in 1959, after she had surgery, and then again, in 1960, her older brother, in Algeria, at the age of 22, I could not help but envy her slightly… and at the same time be grateful for what I had, and still have.
Despite all the bad in her life (past and present), she cheered me up in a magic way. She was the sweetest thing, and she had filled my heart with joy, beauty and hope. I often think about her since, say a prayer and start smiling.
I know I said that I heard these stories from random persons, at random moments. But considering what I was going through: is there such thing as randomness when you are just told what you needed to hear?
