Fascinating vs. Normal Fate

There are as many different life courses as there are human beings. Everybody is born under different circumstances, in different environments and by different parents, which ultimately shape how the life is lead. People share each others’ lives stories by just talking to each other, amongst other ways. What is it then that makes a life story more intriguing and worth listening to or remembering than others? Perhaps it is an element of drama and otherness that evokes attention and interest. In this case, I think it was.

The other day a young woman told about a person she did not like in the beginning because of her too extravagant and weird behaviour. A few months and a few encounters later, her perception had changed since she had heard more about the woman’s fate, which has been something like this: Being a young, wealthy girl from a good English family, she fell in love with a Nigerian man and went along to live with him in Nigeria. That must have been in the 1960s; the family disapproved. In Nigeria, they had 2 daughters and pursued some business together. After some time, they fell out and she had to flee with her daughters because her husband sent the mafia after her. They hid in New Zealand and could only come back to England after her husband had died. Very sadly though, the older daughter did not make it until then because she committed suicide when she was 18, which must have been in the 1980s. Being 70 years of age today, the woman has not lost any of her positive spirits, is lively and kind, and does not mind people’s attention which is often directed to her outer appearance in the first instance as she dresses extravagantly and consistently in the style of the 1940s.