A Woman Who's Touched My Life

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That's why it's called the present. :]

There is a diminutive old lady named Teresa Gadja, who is truly a giantess of humanity. Teresa is somewhere in her mid-80s; I know her and of her because, as a devoted Nine West customer, she’s taken the joy of sharing her life story with me, with all its tumult and triumph. I, on my part, have taken the joy of listening and sharing her story with all of you.

Teresa is a Hungarian-German Jew who survived the persecution and genocide unleashed on Hungary by Adolf Hiter during WWII. One day, the Nazis came to her home and forced her family, along with thousands of others, out at gunpoint. They transported her to Poland in a truck filled to the tiniest corner with men, women and children. The ones who didn’t survive the trek were simply dumped outside during periodic “trash stops.” They were taken, among other places, to Auschwitz.

Teresa managed to survive the Holocaust unscathed. Following the war, she emigrated to Germany where she worked as a common maid and housekeeper during the post-war years. She’s very particular about expressing that she was just happy to be alive and working. It wasn’t till the mid-50s that her and her husband got the opportunity to go to the U.S. They never returned to Germany. Her husband is dead now, but Teresa’s spirit and joie de vivre is as alive as ever.

Teresa still exercises and dances. The fact that she buys her shoes at Nine West says enough in itself. I think she’s easily our oldest regular customer. She’s truly a historic relic. But she doesn’t delve in the past unless prodded. “Ven you get as old as I am,” she tells me in her beautiful German accent, “you gotta just live in the moment.” That is probably not the average perspective of someone her age. If this woman who has seen the rise and fall of empires and the cataclysmic change of a generation can live in the moment, it goes without saying that we all can.

Whatever you do, live in the moment. Tomorrow is not promised. Variations of this truism have riddled the pages of history. Here’s James Dean’s, who died abruptly at 24 in a car crash: “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” Never has so much wisdom been expressed by so young a man.