Everyone has a story....

    Many years ago, when I first started working in the semiconductor industry, most of my co-workers were young people, like me. There were some older people, but mostly the workforce was in their twenties. And most of the workforce was female. There was this one petite, older european woman who mostly kept to herself. She was very timid, and startled easily. Well, once that was discovered, some people would go out of their way to drop things near her just to see her jump and cry out.
   One night, she was sitting alone in the break room, so I joined her. We started talking, and I ended up learning her story. It absolutely floored me. She was Hungarian, and had been in the resistance in that country's civil war. She had been married, and her husband had been killed. She also had a young child, a daughter, who had to be left behind when her mother was secretly smuggled out of the country!
   This poor woman was a widow at a young age, and had to leave her only child behind while she was smuggled to freedom in the United States! It was many years before she would find her child and be reunited with her.
   Listening to her talk that night, it taught me a valuable lesson. You never know what other people's life experiences are, what they have lived through. No wonder she was so easily startled! After all these years, I don't remember that woman's name. But I do remember her story. How she survived, came to the U.S. and became a citizen, and found the courage to go on. She even got married again, and from what I could tell, was quite happy.
   I seem to remember that someone had a few words with her tormenters that got them to stop making loud noises on purpose. That experience opened my eyes and my mind. It got me thinking about others, as well as myself.
   And I still remember that night, as I sat open mouthed, while she told me her story. That one lunch break of an hour seemed to last a whole lot longer, as she transported me to Europe in the 1950's and told me her story.