I think I met my guardian angel today. He’s an elderly man from Baltimore, I kid you not. You know when you meet people and after they leave, you have a weird smile on your face? When you have a really good warm feeling after talking to someone? That’s what I got from this guy. I don’t know his name or anything about him really, but I know that he’s special.
I was volunteering today in the museum gift shop. It was a typical day full of glances at the clock and me miming shooting myself in the head. I was starting to zone out. Then all of a sudden, right in the middle of a blink, there was a man in front of me. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked. “Sure” I said, assuming that I was in trouble or that he was going to yell at me because we didn’t have his size in a t-shirt. Instead he talked to me about Carigdarroch Castle. This is a cool castle that we have in Victoria B.C., which I still haven’t visited yet…oops!
He talked about how much he loved it and then he mentioned that he was originally from Indiana but now lives in Baltimore. “Hey” I said, “I lived in Indiana when I was younger. In Fort Wayne.” This made him really happy. Why are old people so easy to please? Like, any mention of anything familiar and they’re all smiles.
He told me about how he lived in Lafayette and went to college at Purdue. He also told me about how he wanted to work for the best insurance company in the states. So he worked for Social Security. I told him that’s pretty impressive and he seemed to give me a look that said “I know!” So then I gave him look that said “Alright calm down.”
He asked me why I was in Victoria. I basically told him my life story and at the end of it he said, “Well that’s great! But are you happy?” I told him I was. And it wasn’t a lie. But I think I’m a genuinely happy person so maybe I wouldn’t even know if I was sad. He told me that being happy is the most important thing.
After he left, a few of the gift shop employees were like, “Who was that guy?” I said that I didn’t know. But I knew he was sincerely wishing the best for me.
I hope he doesn’t mind me awarding him the honor of being my guardian angel. He seemed like a natural.
And I knight you my guardian angel.
Lily In Canada 