Recently, I’ve had a few trips where flying was inevitable and it was suggested I try meditating while flying. Meditation is fairly new to me but has been very relaxing and I’ve had a good experience so far. So, two days before my dreaded flight I added a few meditation downloads to my phone. Before I could do this I needed to add some icloud space. I have been putting this process off for as long as possible.

The minute I sat down I turned on one of the Hypnotic guided meditations by Joseph Clough I had downloaded on Spotify and spent the entire trip listening and might have even fallen asleep. This gave me the ability to distract my brain and relax. I was so relaxed I didn’t even realize on one flight we had taken off. This is unusual for me since the idea someone is watching me sleep is very uncomfortable. In the future I will not be without my noise cancelling headphones along with some sort of deep meditation.

On this specific day, I was headed home and I found myself in a state of complete calmness. After discovering I had a cancelled flight and would be stuck for the next 10 hours I started my way through the walkways of each gate, taking the tram to the potential location of my next flight in the “E” terminal. As the evening rolled into night I grabbed a couple snacks and a hot coffee just before the shops all closed until morning. I’d picked my seat carefully out in the open, right in the middle of the terminal close to several possible gates. I was on a long overnight layover in the Las Vegas airport, and I wanted to be somewhere I could see what was happening around me. Somewhere that felt safe while I sat there all alone.

The airport had that strange middle of the night energy where everything somehow feels quiet and loud at the same time. Distant chatter mixed with the airport music, while the jingles of the Las Vegas slot machines filled the spaces in between.

I settled into one of those unbearably hard airport seats, plugged in my phone to keep it charged and prepared to keep to myself until morning.

And, in my own mind, I did not give off any sort of an approachable vibe.

Apparently, this perfect stranger thought differently.

He approached me frantically, waving his hands asking if I happened to have a cell phone charger he could use. Here I was sitting in an airport overnight all alone. Never expecting to speak with anyone especially at 1am while be lost in the sound of my current podcast. However, there I was and this young man needed my help at this moment. I never would’ve known I needed this interaction just as much as he did. He was incredibly grateful before he’d even finished explaining himself. Every store was closed, so he couldn’t buy a charger and I just kept reassuring him it wasn’t a problem as I had an extra one. I was about to tell him to take it with him but he just continued to thank me while plugging in his lifeline.

It really was not an issue and I never thought anything more than a stranger needing a charger and I happened to have an extra one. I think normally that would have been the entire story but this night of course was different. After all I was not supposed to be there, and I was really relaxed especially since my flight wasn’t scheduled for another 7 hours. My state of mind was definitely the direct result of continuing the meditation audios.

After a couple minutes had passed this young man tapped his hand over at me getting my attention with tears in his eyes asking if I knew who Hayden Panettiere was.

The actress? Yeah sure. She lives in Nashville and since living in Tennessee there is always some news coming out about one star or another and I remembered she just released her memoir earlier this year. I said something of the nature she’s had a rough go of it but glad to hear things are going well again for her.

He started crying and not just a misty eyed crying.

Sobbing and tears rolling down his face crying.

“She died,” he said.

“Wait. What. Really?”

That was a shock factor and turning point for our conversation.

Everything before it was small talk.

Everything after turned into two hours on a hard airport bench, phones forgotten and eventually fully charged, two strangers talking about grief and the friends we had lost that year.

He told me he had been in Vegas with a group of friends for a birthday celebration. When he saw the news about Hayden, something in him came apart. It quickly became apparent to him that the friends he was with weren’t being very supportive of his reaction.

So he left the hotel in a hurry, hence forgetting his charger.

He headed to the airport, not knowing his evening flight had been delayed until morning.

Just like mine and there we were.

Two complete strangers who never would normally cross paths, sitting beside each other in the middle of the night in the Las Vegas airport.

He told me about losing his best friend and about so many touching moments they had shared together. He shared with me about how he has been affected with this loss and how its been the kind of grief that can come rushing back when something unexpectedly reminds him of her.

He must have thanked me ten times.

And apologized for bothering me even more.

“Sorry for dumping all of this on you.”

“No worries,” I kept saying.

And at first, I meant it easily.

But the longer he talked, the more I could feel his sadness. My empathy for him grew stronger with every story he shared, and somewhere along the way his grief started touching my own.

That is usually the part I avoid.

I am not someone who easily wades into another person’s grief and stays there. I feel things deeply, sometimes so deeply that I worry about losing myself inside someone else’s sadness.

And I especially don’t talk easily about my own losses.

I hadn’t spoken much about my friend Lisa’s passing because it brings up emotions I’m not always comfortable sitting with. There is something about surrendering myself completely to sadness that still feels vulnerable to me.

Especially with a stranger.

Yet there I was.

Sitting on an uncomfortable airport bench with someone I had known for maybe forty minutes, feeling tears fill my own eyes.

The words came out before I had time to decide whether I wanted to say them.

“I understand what you’re feeling. I lost a best friend recently too.”

And suddenly, I wasn’t simply holding space for his grief anymore.

He was holding space for mine. That is the part of this encounter I keep turning over in my mind. I didn’t fall apart.

All the times I have feared what might happen if I allowed myself to go all the way into someone else’s sorrow or even my own and this time I went there.

And I didn’t lose myself in it.

I stayed. I held it with him instead of simply trying to hold it for him.

For probably two hours, neither one of us picked up our fully charged phones.

We just talked about our friends and the grief.

About life and our family’s. He shared about his struggles with being a Puerto Rican gay man and how distant his family has been towards him since being open with his current relationship. I shared a little about my children and how he is the same age as one of them.

And eventually, we talked about God. I shared how life can be challenging and leaning in and having a relationship with him can be comforting especially when we feel alone and lost in a way no one else understands. Also, I shared a little of how I have struggled over this year being upset because I didn’t think it was fair he let my friend struggle and lose her battle with cancer. He shared that he had been feeling the same way and felt he had turned against God and was holding a lot of anger and sadness.

During this time together we weren’t going to solve the worlds problems or couldn’t bring either of our friends back. I couldn’t make his friends understand what he had needed from them that night, and he couldn’t make losing Lisa hurt any less for me.

We simply sat there and allowed each other to feel it.

We pulled up a few stories that had just been released of Hayden and some photos of her from her earlier days. He showed me a photo of his friend and said she had overdosed. He didn’t understand because she wasn’t into any of that stuff.

I showed him an instagram reel I had made in remembrance of Lisa, he asked if he could follow me and promised he wouldn’t be a stalker..

Then I asked him a question I certainly hadn’t expected to ask the stranger who had walked up wanting nothing more than to borrow my charger.

“Can I pray with you?”

He said yes.

So there we sat, somewhere between the slot machine jingles, distant conversations, airport music, rolling suitcases, and exhausted travelers, and we prayed.

Two delayed flights, two strangers, both grieving friends.

One dying cell phone that somehow started the whole thing.

I call moments like this God winks.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the stores were closed or a coincidence that his flight was delayed until morning just as mine had been.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that grief walked right up to me on an airport bench after I had intentionally chosen a place where I thought no one would approach me.

Maybe coincidence is enough of an explanation for some people.

For me, it felt like God.

I think I was supposed to be sitting in that exact seat.

Not because I had some profound answer for this young man’s grief. I didn’t.

Not to fix him. Not even necessarily to comfort him, although I hope I did.

Maybe I was there so that for a couple of hours, compassion could move through me toward someone who desperately needed a safe place to put his grief.

He was there for me too. I think I needed to discover that I could sit in someone else’s pain and feel my own without it swallowing me. Maybe I needed to learn that I could speak Lisa’s name, allow tears into my eyes, and still remain right there in that seat and not pretend I don’t feel.

I think holding space for another person unexpectedly created enough room for me to put down a little of what Ive been carrying too.

Eventually, it was time for us to head toward our separate gates. He asked if he could give me a hug.

Sure of course.

Because apparently I meet perfect strangers in the Las Vegas airport, lend them phone chargers, cry with them, pray with them, and hug them goodbye now.

As he walked toward his gate, still thanking me for being so kind, he turned back almost as an afterthought.

“By the way, my name is Diego.”

I smiled.

“Bye, Diego. God sure works in mysterious ways. And I’m glad your phone is charged. Have a safe flight home.”

And that was it. Or so I thought. Two days later, a message popped up on my Instagram. It was from Diego.

He thanked me again and wanted to make sure I had made it safely home to my family.

Sure did. Thank you. I hope you’re doing well.

I sat there for a moment thinking about the whole strange encounter again.

Diego approached me because his phone needed charging and he was all alone and upset in a city far from home. I was far from home all alone missing my kids and hadn’t heard of the loss of Hayden. Im sure it wouldn’t of been long and I would’ve been sad all alone too.

Sometimes God doesn’t announce what he is doing.

But shows up in an overnight layover or a delayed flight. On a hard airport bench with a stranger who feels safe enough to cry and I didn’t run away but felt connected enough to cry back.

And one little phone charger sitting between us.

God winks are the best!

The view from my midnight seat choice in the Las Vegas airport

Read more

Read more

Thank you for sitting with my words. Its an honor to be welcomed into your quiet space, I’m incredibly grateful for the support.

Subscribe

Did anyone ever see the table, the one that stood in the corner of the room?

Wood grown soft, beneath the weight of everything left undone.

Boxes have always been there. Lids swollen shut, edges warped by years of stacking.

Pictures worn thin, where a thumb kept returning. One by one, they are emptied.

A horizon slips behind a wall.

A wing leans against a doorway.

Storms settle inside a field of gold.

Nothing fits.

Nothing belongs.

The pieces spend years mistaking proximity for home.

Some lie face down, learning the language of cardboard.

Others are pressed together by impatient hands, holding their shape through force alone.

The hidden image longs to appear.

Until the room holds its silence differently.

Nothing reaches to rearrange the edges.

Nothing asks a piece to become another shape.

Gradually…..

a single piece is lifted, turned away from the darkness.

Its colors had never disappeared.

Only the surface had to learn which way to face.

Somewhere beneath the growing image, is a quiet click.

Then another.

The sound of connection, not of being forced, but of belonging.

Blue finding sky.

Red finding fire.

Edges releasing the burden of pretending to be jagged.

Slowly……

each piece finds its own place

The horizon finds the distance.

Wings find the birds.

The door connects to the house.

Raindrops are no longer mistaken for part of the storm.

All while searching for a picture no piece had ever seen.

No piece apologizes for fitting.

No space asks to remain empty.

The picture is not rushed.

It arrives……

the way a sunrise becomes morning,

without asking whether anyone believes it is coming.

And when the last misplaced edge is finally returned,

the table is no longer covered with boxes and scattered pieces.

It now holds only one image, each piece placed where it was always meant to rest.

Only then does the picture look back and recognize me.

From a place in my Peaceful dreams

showing up, holding it all together,

softening the edges.

I thought if I gave more than I was given,

if I built a life that didn’t feel like mine once did,

then it would b…

Read more

It slips in quietly, almost unnoticed, until every thought feels heavier than the one before it.

Anxiety has a way of multiplying everything it touches.

A single thoug…

Read more

The words arrived.

From the scattered pieces in my mind, my words finally took shape.

My Words Arrived.

Say it again.

My. Words. Arrived.

Not all at once. And not with certainty or confidence.

In fragments and brokenness.

My words arrived and I didn't die.

For so long, they lived somewhere deep inside me, trapped behind a wall I didn't know how to get past.

Every time I reached for them, my throat would close. My voice would disappear.

The words existed, but they couldn't find the path.

I’ve carried them for so long that I stopped believing they would ever find their way out.

This time my throat opened and my tongue formed the words I never thought I could say out loud.

The actual words. And I didn’t die.

My words arrived.

Not with elusiveness or hidden metaphors. Not carefully edited versions on paper.

The actual words out loud.

And I didn't die.

For a moment, I disconnected from myself. I floated somewhere above the conversation, watching it unfold as if I were listening to someone else's story.

There was no flood of emotion.

Just broken memories becoming my language.

For most of my life, I carried stories alone, stories I believed would stay buried forever.

I lived with a deep fear of what would happen if I ever said some of these words out loud. I never have fully understood all of the fears. I only know it had a hold on me. More than anything, I was afraid of what he would do if I spoke them. The fear became so familiar, so much a part of who I was, that silence felt safest. Even after he was gone, the fear remained.

But he’s been gone for almost twenty one years.

Twenty one years!

And still, the fear remains.

Fear has a strange way of outliving the thing that created it.

A shadow can disappear, yet my body still remembered where it once stood.

Part of me remains frozen in a time when silence felt safer than truth.

The details are still there. There are many of them. More than I know what to do with.

But the girl who carried that darkness is not carrying it alone anymore.

The hardest words are no longer trapped inside her.

They are no longer pressing against the walls of her throat!

They are free.

I truly believed I would go my entire life and die with this part of my story still buried deep inside of me.

YET HERE I AM!

This relief is difficult to describe.

At fifty one years old, those words have sat inside me like air trapped in a balloon, stretched beyond its limits.

I’ve carried the weight of them everywhere.

And now somehow, the knot loosened.

The balloon opened. And a gust of stories rushed out!

Fifty one years of silence and fears.

For one complete hour after, I simply sat. I could almost see my every word float off into the clouds.

All the years spent holding onto words that were fighting to breathe.

GONE…..

There are still valleys of darkness I have yet to walk. I’m not sure if I am meant to simply walk through them or even acknowledge their existence.

Not every door has opened. And perhaps some never will.

But something changed.

My silence broke beyond a simple YES or NO answer.

The words now belong to the open air instead of me alone, thank you air for holding an endless space for this release.

To my mentor, my friend, thank you for guiding me and listening. For recognizing what was too heavy for me and providing somewhere safe to land.

You sat with the weight of it all. You didn’t turn away. You didn’t rush past the fragments in time or try to fix it. You simply held a safe space for the words when they finally arrived.

Your gentleness is a gift I will never forget.

I don’t know exactly how I arrived at this exact moment in time.

What I do know is God has been hard at work in my life, he’s reached into the broken places and rescued me.

Over time he began loosening my grip from the fears I carry, patiently and quietly tearing down what once kept me trapped, making room for the trust, healing, and light to enter.

On this day,

I felt safe. A wall came down.

My words arrived.

My throat opened and I said the Words out loud.

And I didn’t die.

“There’s something sacred almost divine about the bond between a little girl and her daddy. He’s supposed to be her safe place. Her prote…

Read more

All I hear are echoes.
All I see are memories flashing across the darkness behind my eyes.

Today was one of those days.

…

Read more

Most people didn’t pay much attention to it. If they did, they noticed the obvious things like the chipped paint, the cracked porch step, the place…

Read more

The heart was never broken.
It was set on fire.

Not in one sudden blaze,
but slowly
match by match.

Some were struck by the hands that were supposed to protect me.

A mother who carried both danger and laug…

Read more

Share

Read more

She entered a world
that taught her to listen for footsteps,
to read the weather in people…

Read more

Its needle bent by voices near, some rooted deep in love, some fear.

Read more

I thought I knew by heart, only to discover entire countries hidden beneath the ink.

You speak of earthquakes.

I remember gardens.

You point toward wreckage, while I am still holdi…

Read more

There was a time I held a wolf beneath my tongue. Fierce with fire, yet hollow with hunger, its ribs pressed against my teeth every time I tried to speak.

I offered this beast to familiar hands.

Some r…

Read more

Read more

My…

Read more

It wasn’t your fault.

Read more

Read more