Starting Out on the Right Foot

I have a new friend, whom I will likely never see again, called Joe.

Joe is a swell guy and a sailor who lives on Amelia Island. He and I happened to be seated together on a plane last weekend--he was coming off of a funeral, I was going to check on my aging parents. We struck up a conversation and then a friendship. By the time we'd arrived at our layover destination, we were having lunch together and looking at pictures on each others' phones. It was a lovely way to start a sudden and stress-probable journey.

But armed with the good fellowship of that first leg of my flight, I struck out on a positive note. I felt a genuine empathy and connection with everyone I saw and spoke to. I assumed the best and for the most part, was right.

Joe was the latest goodwill ambassador in my life. But there is only one person whom I can credit with being the Queen of All Things Good--the lady who quietly taught me how to be myself--Tyla.

I thought I knew "who I was", but I was mistaken. I only knew who I had been told to be. I listened to the old stories and assumed them to be true. Only after knowing Tyla, only after seeing just how a person should move through their life with grace, did I know who I was, who I'd been hiding, and how to be that person.

With Tyla's help I went from being cynical to being hospitable; from loathing to loving. I realized I loved being "Mom" and "Cook" and "Baker". I found my calling in having an open door policy, and can truly appreciate the small but wonderful things like chatting with my neighbor over the fence, helping out the local pet food pantry, and making sure that if the bus leaves a kid behind they know to walk to my house for a ride.

Tyla, if you read this, I hope you'll begin to understand just how many lives you impact by teaching just one friend at a time how to live in beauty and with grace. And as I parted from Joe, he and I both took with us the joy of communion and the invigoration of a happenstance lunch with a newfound friend. As I left my old friends and my family behind on the return flight, I know how touched, how moved many of them were with my transformation--some even said as much.

My good friend Tyla is one of those special angels who, like ripples on a still pond, make the world a far more beautiful place, one soul at a time. "Thank you" will never be enough to say to her.