I know her yet I don't

Last year, in March, I spent a week in Miskolc, Hungary, as an exchange student at a school there. The family I was staying at, lived in a little village near Miskolc, so each morning, we went to school by bus.

In the first evening I spent there, we went for a walk in the village. After a few minutes, I realised that that placed had stolen my heart. It was quiet and it just had something that made me feel like I was home. So the first day came, when I went to school. We woke up around 6:30 and soon enough we left the house. We were in a big hurry so we could catch the bus. As I was taking big steps, I still managed to look around and just breath in everything that that place offered me. In this hurry, I saw an old lady near the bus station. She was selling flowers... I wanted to go there, and buy some flowers and maybe ask her how she was feeling that day, but the bus came and I couldn’t be late on my first day.

The days passed, and somehow we managed to almost be late every single morning, so I didn’t really had the chance to talk with the old lady who caught my attention. I kept thinking about her, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Something was telling me to go there, to talk to her, something was drawing me to her. I had to talk to her.

But I didn’t have the chance. I never even managed to ask her how her day was. But she did get her „message” to me. It was Friday, my last day at the school. We were of course in a hurry. I was having a bad day, I woke up like that and I didn’t know what to do against it. It was just a bad day. I woke up too late, I stained my shirt at the breakfast, I forgot my lunch on the table, I mixed up my socks, my phone’s battery was dying... And on top of that, it was my last day in the school as an exchange student, it was the last day that I would spend with my new classmates in my new favourite classes... The idea of leaving made me even sadder. Everything was just really bad. So we were hurrying again. The old lady was there again, like she had been each day that week. I think she felt that something was not okay with me. I just got to the bus station when she stood up and slowly came to me. She was holding a small bouquet of forget-me-not in her hard-worker hands, and she gave it to me. I didn’t really know how to react, I started to look for my purse so I could pay her the beautiful bouquet made of my favourite flower.  All she said was „It’s a gift, to make your day better. Smile, darling. And don’t forget to make others smile.” Then she just walked slowly back to her bench and continued to make more bouquets. I was just standing there, as if I was dreaming. It all felt so surreal... It felt, like she gave me one of her greatest treasures.

Later when I asked my host-family who that old lady was, they didn’t know. They said it was the first time they have seen her there.

She was my special person while I was abroad (among many others, who have made my stay there very special)... I have never talked to her, I have no idea what her name is, I know nothing about her... Yet she taught me something, that I will always remember. She became part of me. All she did was to be a human being with a heart, which is so rare these days... Even if I saw her again, I wouldn’t know how to thank her for brightening my day and for reminding me that I can make others smile too.