Posts Tagged ‘Life’

Life is a lottery

Nothing about colour this this time – just about humanity.

I have just spent 60 minutes sitting next to two very inspiring people. An elderly couple who were returning home to the USA after visiting her family back here in the UK. As we settled in to our seats the man turns to me and tells me he and his wife met in the war. !!! Yes. I did a double take. My mum was born in 1939 and she is 70. This couple had to be 20 years older than her. They were – both 89. I would never have guessed. They were sharp, alert, just the slightest shake when placing the luggage in the overhead locker. That’s it.

We talked about the war. In my whole life he is the first person I have spoken to who actually fought in the war. He was parachuted in to France, and then Holland, and then Germany. He carries shrapnel in his back to this day. They met in England. She was a war bride and travelled over to the US in 1946 in a hospital ship. We talked about war and peace, friends in foreign countries, retirement, geography and gardening.

It is hard to say why I feel touched exactly. More than anything I think it must have been the amazement I felt in the first moment. This unremarkable looking elderly couple who in a moment suddenly became so remarkable to me. Good people. People who have lived a lifetime and can still talk about it. People who have experienced the past but are still in the present.

Why do I call this post Life is a Lottery? From listening to some of their wartime stories it struck me how arbitrary life and death are in war. He lost fellow soldiers who died as they stood right next to him. Her wartime neighbours in London had fled Germany in 1937. Their house was hit by a stray bomb and the mother and son were killed in the blast.

Wrong time, wrong place. Right time, right place, how can we possibly know or choose. Life is so much bigger and fortune – good or bad is all around. This morning mine was to be sitting in 3F on flight KL1490.

I watched them being taken to their connecting flight and felt uplifted to have met something special in something so unremarkable.

My next post will be on twin souls. It seems to follow on nicely … Coming soon.