I was sent this around 2006 in one of those round-robin emails:
"Some people come into your life for a season or a reason".
(from googling) The Full Saying: "People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you'll know exactly what to do," often attributed to a poem by Brian A. "Drew" Chalker.
In the case of the dour Italian peasant woman in September 1981, it was only for the duration of the train journey from Florence to Rome.
We didn't speak each other's language, but for my brief waking moments on that train, I'd shown her kindness the moment I entered the carriage, and she, in return, gave her second salami roll to me (which, in hindsight, I think was her dinner for the second leg of her journey -- to Naples, five hours' train journey away). (She tried to share her can of cola with me, too, after the salami roll, but I was politely firm in not partaking -- to be covered in a different blog about the sharing of food.)
She also turned out to be a guardian angel, if only for just a few seconds, by waking me up in time in Rome.
A full account of how I met the dour peasant woman, and how she'd saved me from missing my plane for London, is in: https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/firenze-roma-train.html
I still remember her with great warmth to this day. God bless her.
(Rome, 1981)
No comments:
Post a Comment