While working in a big soap factory, I had happy days and useless ones. You're at home writing, walking in the park, doing yoga, meeting up with friends and feeling all joyful, until the clock warns you to get on that train right now, destination uselessness. Eight hours would crawl even though I was busy. Peeling off labels, putting other labels back on pots and bottles and one minute is a lifetime.
It was on a particular useless day that Lydia walked into my life to change my world forever. She was new and I showed her around. We worked together all day, it felt like only five minutes. She must have been in her sixties, a grandma from Ghana with an amount of stories that would make a library blush. Stories of Africa, arranged marriages, tragedy and love. Even when sharing tales of hard times she has been through, she always kept that glow, that twinkle in her eyes. She told me: "Baby, don't take anything for granted. Enjoy every moment with your loved ones, because when they are gone, there will be nothing left but memories."
She had lost her beloved husband but was still positive and enjoying life to the fullest. I told her I admire her positivity. "You are such an inspiring woman," I whispered. She smiled, looked me straight in the eye and said: "Every morning when I wake up, I have two choices. To be happy or to be sad. And every day I choose happiness."
Those words kept ringing in my ears for a very long time. I saw her the next day and gave her a big hug. Such a great connection created by sharing stories. She winked and her eyes had that twinkle. That was the second and last day I saw Lydia. She didn't come in to work anymore, which made me wonder if she sensed the uselessness of the job and realised the factory didn't fit in her vision of happiness. Secretly I think she was a guardian angel who walked into my life just to put pink glasses on my nose and make me see the world through her positive eyes.