No fruitful information, humble occupation and disappointing livelihood could ever depreciate the splendor of his presence. He was an unerringly perfect embodiment of Fijian chi. He walked down the hall with an intangible earthiness, as he dusted the shelves with relaxed eloquence. His wrinkled skin folded in a soft cascade down his face, a manifestation of his hard life. The same dark brown skin exaggerated the garish colors that bled through her tattered Sulu like a clumsily decorated birthday cake. Despite all this, his exhaustion fought a losing battle against the bright light that radiated from his chocolate brown eyes. I treasured our capricious daily exchanges that were omnipresent in my psyche. She left me flowers, I left her chocolate, and we both left letters on the shelf. The serendipity of two strangers becoming instant confidants motivated us. We closed windows on each other's lives, spanning our lifestyles and shaping a divergent lens of mixed cultures through which we both perceived the world. Our eyes met and his mouth opened into a smile. Coming closer to me, he fished a white flower from his Sulu and placed it gently behind my right ear. “Thank you, friend, for sharing your life with me. Every day I read your fairytale letters to my children - I hope one day they can read them too,” he croaked. A tear slipped... into the center of the paper... you are happy. That is, until globalization and advertising come to convince them that they need processed foods, jeans, a car and a loan to make all this possible. her warm and maternal embrace. I found enough of my voice to whisper “Thank you. Thank you for this extremely precious day.” She laughed. In response to my surprised expression he quickly explained, "My name means 'precious' in Fijian." The unerring poetry of this statement struck me with lightning-fast force as I reflected on our time together. Talei, the epitome of warmth and compassion, had opened her world to a stranger, teaching me a vital lesson. Stripped of the omnipresent materialism of consumer society, contentment remains, bringing to light a surprising truth. Above all, life itself is precious.