Insight

The summer before my senior year of high school I worked as a clerical assistant for the Federal Government in Washington DC.  I was 16 years old, the year was 1968.  That summer was life changing for me because it was my first grown-up job and I fell in love.  Not with an individual . . . I fell in love with the idea of working and the importance and satisfaction that goes along with it.  By the end of the summer I discovered I wanted to work full-time for the Federal Government after I graduated from high school.  If I had chosen a different path I never would have met Sergei Kourdakov four years later.

That summer of ‘68 I met a unique U.S. Air Force Major at work.  In A Rose for Sergei I tell how this person made it a point to share a few “words of wisdom” with me.  It was almost as if he had insight about my life and he was trying to shield me from heartbreak.  At the end of August, when my job was over, I returned to school for my senior year and I never saw or had contact with him again.  His words of wisdom, however, stayed with me always.  It wasn’t until many years later that I realized the significance of our meeting and how relevant his words were.

I believe people come into our life at certain times for a reason.  They touch our life for that moment, provide information, friendship and advice, and then they are gone.

Some people are not meant to be in our life forever.