Kenrick Vaz

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Our Miracle

Today we complete 7 years since we said “I do” and it’s a little over 7 months since Keanah came into this world. My heart is filled with gratitude for the amazing journey we’ve been on so far. Biblically, the number 7 is often considered a symbol of completeness and perfection. And through the ups and downs, through the days and nights I’ve fought with the Lord, asking Him “Why Lord???”, as I look back today, I can definitely say that so far He has made things beautiful, perfect and complete in HIS time.

I thought today is a perfect opportunity to share our journey with you through 7 major miracles that tested and deepened my faith. Both Ana and myself were drawn to share our journey so that when Keanah grows up we have this to share with her without missing any details as to why we call her our miracle.

Miracle 1: Pain
Our journey starts in June 2020 when we first conceived. We were so so happy, we had been trying for little less than a year. However, our hearts broke when we went for our ultrasound in the 7-8th week and heard no heartbeat. Our gynaec told us that it’s a blighted ovum and there’s nothing to worry. We then conceived again in April 2021. The challenging part this time was that I was down with Covid. Again, no heartbeat in the 7-8th week. We were really upset this time and the worst part is we had to deal with it alone for sometime as I was in isolation. Our gynaec made us do a full set of tests to figure out why the foetus wasn’t growing. We then got to know that Ana has a condition where her immunity is high. It was treating the foetus as a foreign body and hence attacking it. Why do I say this is a miracle? Well if not diagnosed, her high immunity would eventually lead to conditions like autoimmune diseases. It’s good we could deal with this now so that we don’t have to suffer with other catastrophic consequences.

Miracle 2: Conception
In July 2022, we had decided to move to the US for a few years. Everyone kept asking me why aren’t you going there and it seemed like a good time to make the move. God had other plans!

On August 10, Mama’s birthday, Ana woke up feeling very sick. And then got even more cranky as she had planned to do a few things to celebrate her Mama’s birthday and now couldn’t do anything. Towards the afternoon, we did a test and got to know we’re pregnant! Our plan to move went out of the window and our focus now was solely on ensuring things go ahead with all that we learned from our past two experiences.

A few days after we got to know we are pregnant!

Miracle 3: Finding Dr. Payal
Even though we started on all the medication as prescribed by our gynaec, when we went for the ultrasound in the sixth week, we didn’t hear the heartbeat. We visited our gynaec and we weren’t happy when we left her clinic.

Recently a new maternity hospital, Motherhood, had opened just near our place. So we decided to visit them for a second opinion. Since I could go only in the evening (because of work!), we saw Dr. Payal available. I quickly checked online and saw good reviews about her. When we met her, both Ana and I immediately felt she is so much like my sister Melanie. At once we felt at home and comfortable with her.

We spent over 45 minutes explaining to her everything. She patiently and calmly listened to us. And told us to continue the medication and do the ultrasound again on 1 September. When we left her cabin we both knew that this is the doctor who we would love to continue with. She made us feel understood, answered all our questions so well and assured us that we’re in the right hands. I don’t think we’ve ever had such an experience with a doctor. It was different, felt perfect for us and we both trusted her completely. We don’t know what we would have done without her and her ever positive attitude. She played an important part in our journey and words aren’t enough to make anyone understand how much she means to the both of us.

Miracle 4: The Heartbeat
On 1 September we went for the ultrasound. We’ve been for 6 ultrasounds before this one and I knew Ana was nervous, scared and tensed. I was a wreck too but I had to appear strong for her, being positive. Before leaving I had a quick chat with Shweta, my work colleague who has become a very close friend. She told me “I’m praying, I know everything will go well this time and I want a girl!”

Ana went in for the ultrasound at Motherhood and my heart was in my mouth when the nurse came out in a matter of minutes. I then realised she came to call me in as well. This was the first time I’d be in the room for the ultrasound. The previous ones, at other hospitals, didn’t allow me in.

When the Dr started, we heard the heartbeat for the very first time. It was music to my ears, the best thing I had ever heard till date. Tears rolled down my face with joy and I almost jumped off my stool to hug the doctor! We were over the moon!

The tough part was from then till February, Ana had to take injections everyday along with blood thinners to help ensure there’s good blood supply going to the foetus. The daily injections changed to alternate days after November. Giving those injections every time with a brave face is definitely one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do, but Ana had to endure much more, bearing all that pain in addition to all the changes taking place in her body with the baby growing inside her. It’s amazing how situations bring out so much strength that we have within us.

Miracle 5: Special? Of course!
In mid-October our gynaec sent us for our NT scan. It’s a test where the nuchal fluid behind the baby’s neck is measured. A high level indicates that there’s a 80% chance of your baby having genetic defects like Down syndrome. Our hearts broke when we saw our reading. It was 3.92, whereas the normal is not more than 2.5. We were so upset. And when our gynaec said this is the highest she’s ever seen, I was a mess. We cried bitterly when we returned. That period is probably the most I’ve fought with God. Why all this when we do so much for you and the church? Why!?

I wasn’t happy with the test, so Dr. Payal sent us to one of the best fetal specialists in Pune, Dr. Pooja Lodha. Our appointment was at 1pm but we finally went in at around 4pm. The NT this time was 2.6, still high. But again, Dr. Pooja took her time to explain everything to us in great detail. We had two issues, one where the pressure at the artery supplying blood to baby was high. And secondly there were multiple fibroids. She said it’ll be a miracle if we have a normal delivery.

Dr. Pooja is definitely a gem of a person and absolutely fantastic at what she does. Again we were blessed with the best. What we loved the most are the lovely pics she shared of baby at almost every visit of ours.

Since the level was still high Dr. Payal then told us that since this scan is only 80% accurate and could also be a false positive, there are additional tests. The most accurate one is where they extract fluid from the foetus to test. It’s a risky procedure with a chance of miscarriage. I then asked her what is the point of doing all these tests. Anyway it’s a genetic issue and there’s nothing we with can do. So she replied that if we’re sure it’s a genetic issue you have the option to abort. I immediately told her there’s no way we’re aborting this baby. We’ve struggled to get here and we will accept it. It’s a gift from God. And moreover our religion doesn’t allow us to abort. So she still advised us to do the tests as we will have peace of mind if it’s all good, rather than stressing for the remaining 6 months wondering what’s going to happen.

We came home, discussed with each other and with our immediate family. Ana and I then decided that we won’t do the tests. We had already done enough of tests so far and we trusted God completely. The miracle? We did the genetic tests after Keanah was born and the reports came back completely normal! When we shared this with Dr. Payal, she told us the whole team at Motherhood rejoiced when they heard about the report. She then smiled and added “good comes to those who do good”

Miracle 6: Amniotic Cocktail
In February, at 32 weeks, we did our ultrasound with Dr. Pooja followed by our visit to Dr. Payal. We got a little startled when Dr said that Ana needs to get admitted as the amniotic fluid level is very low. It’s 5 whereas it’s supposed to be 15. After Ana got admitted Dr told me that if the levels don’t come up we will have to deliver immediately. However, Ana was on blood thinners and injections till that point. We needed her to be off them for at least 6-7 days before we can operate her. Miraculously the high pressure at the artery connecting the foetus was normal for the first time ever! If that was still high we would have had one more complication to deal with. Ana was given drips to increase her amniotic fluid. The fluid was thick and the drips were very painful.

That evening I came home for a quick bath and to collect a few things. I fell to my knees and begged God to bring up the amniotic levels. That’s the best outcome for us. Thankfully it went up to 10 over the next 3-4 days. We were so relieved. However we had to go back every alternate day to get those extremely painful amniotic cocktails to maintain the fluid levels. I don’t understand how Ana had the strength to put on a brave face through it all.

Miracle 7: 26 March
We visited Dr. Payal at our 36 week mark and she said baby is doing well, why do you want to suffer with those painful drips any longer? Baby is ready, let’s admit Ana on 25th late night and try inducing. By morning if we’re not successful, we will do a c-section. We weren’t expecting it to be so soon. I remember talking to my cousin Neisha about a few things regarding the delivery just before we got to know it’s going to happen in a matter of hours!

Before we left for the hospital, 25 March 2023

At midnight we got admitted to Motherhood. And just as Ana entered the labour room, she went naturally into labour. Dr. Payal who was with Ana said “baby also knew that it’s time to come out!” After around 11 hours, Keanah was born, natural delivery, a miracle in Dr. Pooja’s words! And Shweta’s wish was answered, she got her girl! 😊

Many who were present at Keanah’s baptism heard us singing Michael Buble’s “Forever now”. And both Ana and I were very emotional. I was overwhelmed with emotions as I sang the lines “you’ve got so much strength inside you, a strength we pray you’ll never need”. After all we had gone through, these words just meant a lot, we identified so strongly with them. We wouldn’t want Keanah or anyone to have these experiences. And yet we’re so grateful because this journey has definitely strengthened our relationship with each other and more importantly with God.

Thank you Nihal for capturing this :)

Even though the journey has been something I was never prepared for, He made sure that He sent his angels to take care of us. Our families have been our strongest pillars of strength through it all, they stormed heaven with their prayers and have been with us at every step of the way. Dr. Payal and Dr. Pooja were heaven sent, came in at the right time when we needed them the most and hence we always knew we were in the best of hands always. So many of our family and friends showed up when we needed them the most. The community at Mount Carmel’s and our priests at our parish along with our Sunday school teachers and choir kids prayed fervently for us, we’re eternally grateful to all of them for their prayers. It’s amazing how much love, prayers and support we’ve been showered with on this journey.

The view of Mount Carmels (Ana’s alma mater) from Motherhood

As we hold our precious little Keanah in our arms, we are filled with gratitude for the incredible journey that brought us to where we are today. The challenges and triumphs along the way have made this experience all the more profound and beautiful. Our hearts are full, and we can’t wait to embrace the adventure that lies ahead as a family. This miraculous journey has just begun, and we are eager to see where it takes us.

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How Mature Are You?

Age alone does not an adult make. But what does? What makes you finally, really an adult? Adulthood is a social construct. For that matter, so is childhood. But like all social constructs, they have real consequences. They determine who is legally responsible for their actions and who is not, what roles people are allowed to assume in society, how people view each other, and how they view themselves. But even in the realms where it should be easiest to define the difference—law, physical development—adulthood defies simplicity.

You can’t drink until you are 21, but legal adulthood, along with voting and the ability to join the army, comes at age 18. Or does it? You’re allowed to watch adult movies at 17. In many countries kids can hold a job as young as 14, depending on state restrictions, and are even allowed to deliver newspapers, babysit, or work for their parents even younger than that.

Chronological age is not a particularly good indicator [of maturity], but it’s something we need to do for practical purposes. We all know people who are 21 or 22 years old who are very wise and mature, but we also know people who are very immature and very reckless. We’re not going to start giving people maturity tests to decide whether they can buy alcohol or not.

There is definitely no certain age at which maturity sets in. In my personal experiences, I’ve observed that age has little or nothing to do with it. I have met young people who are mature well beyond their years, and I’ve known older folks who act childish, only thinking about themselves. So the question is: What are the character traits that show maturity? And do “mature” people exhibit them 100% of the time?

Well, I’m not sure that we can be mature in every situation that presents itself to us because we are always growing and learning as human beings, and I’m pretty sure that all of us have been guilty of at least some of these negative behaviors at least once in our lives. That being said, by considering these 25 tell-tale signs, perhaps we can be more aware of the interludes in which our whiny, complaining, adolescent self rears its immature head…

1. Realizing how much you don’t know.

2. Listening more and talking less.

3. Being aware and considerate of others as opposed to being self-absorbed, self-centered, and inconsiderate.

4. Not taking everything personally, getting easily offended, or feeling the need to defend, prove, or make excuses for yourself.

5. Being grateful and gracious, not complaining.

6. Taking responsibility for your own health and happiness, not relying on others to “fix” you or placing blame for your circumstances.

7. Having forgiveness and compassion for yourself and others.

8. Being calm and peaceful, not desperate, frantic, or irrational.

9. Showing flexibility and openness as opposed to resisting, controlling, or being unreasonable.

10. Helping yourself, not just expecting others to do it for you out of a sense of entitlement.

11. Doing good deeds even when there is nothing in it for you other than knowing you helped, being selfless.

12. Respecting another’s point of view, beliefs, and way of life without judgment, not insisting you are right, belittling another, or using profanity or violence to get your point across.

13. Sharing your good fortune with others.

14. Being able to turn the other cheek without wishing harm on another.

15. Thinking before acting and having good manners, not going off half-cocked, lashing out, or being rude.

16. Encouraging and being supportive of others.

17. Finding joy in the success of someone else, not envy or criticism.

18. Knowing there is always room to grow and improve and reaching out for help.

19. Having humility and laughing at yourself.

20. Recognizing that which does not work in your life and making an effort to do something different.

21. Passing up instant gratification in favor of long term benefits.

22. Accepting, liking, and loving yourself, not needing someone else to “complete” you.

23. Standing up for fairness and justice for yourself and others and choosing to do the right thing.

24. Making sacrifices for the good of others without resentment.

25. Not clinging to materialistic items or bragging.

I’m sure there are probably other signs, but this list covers at least the majority of them. I know we can always do a better job displaying our mature sides. I also know that, by doing so, we lift each other up through our example. What’s most important, however, is seeing the negative side of our behavior and knowing we must do something positive to change it…And that, my friends, is WISDOM.

Happiness – Hidden in Plain Sight

We spend a surprising amount of our lives looking at what is missing.

The bigger house. The better job. The next promotion. The holiday we have been saving for. The car we want to upgrade to. The number we would like to see in our bank account.

There is always something just beyond where we are.

And because our eyes are fixed on it, we can walk straight past a lot of good things without giving them much attention.

A quiet breakfast with someone you love. Your child laughing at something that makes absolutely no sense to you. A friend sending a message because they remembered you. Getting home after a long day and changing into comfortable clothes. Finding your favorite song while driving. Sitting down with a cup of coffee before everyone else wakes up.

None of these things will look impressive on a list of achievements.

They can still make a life feel full.

I think we sometimes misunderstand happiness because we imagine it as a reward. Get enough things right and eventually you arrive there. Work hard enough, earn enough, travel enough, achieve enough, and happiness will be waiting somewhere at the finish line.

Except the finish line keeps moving.

You get the job you once desperately wanted, and within a year you are thinking about the next one. You buy the phone you spent weeks researching, then a newer model appears. You finally visit the place that sat on your travel list for years, take hundreds of photographs, come home, and start looking at flights somewhere else.

Wanting more is part of being human. Ambition can build a wonderful life.

The problem starts when wanting what comes next makes us careless with what is already here.

There was probably a time when something in your current life was exactly what you were hoping for.

Maybe you once wished for the job you complain about on Monday morning. Perhaps you dreamed of having your own home while living with roommates. There may have been a time when you hoped to find the person whose shoes are now lying in the middle of your hallway.

Even ordinary family chaos can contain things we once wanted badly.

Toys scattered across the floor mean there is a child playing in the house. A sink full of dishes might be left over from dinner with people you love. A packed calendar can include work you once hoped someone would trust you to do.

We get used to good things remarkably quickly.

The first few times something happens, we notice every detail. Then it becomes normal. Soon we barely see it.

That is why happiness often has less to do with improving the circumstances around us and more to do with paying attention to them.

Look around your life on an ordinary Tuesday.

Who would you miss if their chair were suddenly empty?

What routine would you give anything to experience one more time if you knew it was about to end?

Which small inconvenience is attached to something you would never willingly give up?

Those questions change the way ordinary things look.

You stop seeing another bedtime routine and notice the tiny hand reaching for yours.

You stop treating a phone call from your parents as something to squeeze between meetings and listen to the story you have already heard several times.

You stay at the table a little longer.

You look out of the window during the drive instead of reaching for your phone at every traffic light.

You taste the food.

You hear the laugh.

You notice who showed up.

None of this requires pretending everything is wonderful. Some seasons are hard. Bills still need paying. Careers can stall. Relationships need work. People get tired, disappointed and worried.

You can want things to improve while still noticing what is worth keeping.

That habit matters because life rarely announces which moments will become precious later.

There is no notification telling you that this is the last year your child will ask you to carry them.

Nobody warns you that one random dinner will become the story everyone tells years later.

You do not know which coffee with a friend will eventually become one of those memories that makes you smile when their name appears in an old photograph.

We usually recognize these moments after they are gone.

Maybe happiness is learning to recognize a few of them while they are still happening.

The warm meal in front of you.

The familiar voice from the other room.

The person sitting beside you.

The life you once hoped for, quietly happening on a completely

Tell people they matter.

Say it clearly enough that they never have to study your behaviour for clues.

We often assume people know how we feel about them. Of course my parents know I love them. My partner knows how much I appreciate them. My friends know I value them. The people I work with know I respect what they bring to the table.

Do they?

People cannot hear the conversations we have about them in our heads. They do not know that we smiled when their name appeared on our phone. They never heard us tell someone else how talented they are. They cannot see the gratitude we feel when they quietly make our day easier.

They only know what reaches them.

That is why appreciation needs a voice.

Tell your friend, “I’m glad you’re in my life.”

Tell your parents you appreciate something specific they did years ago.

Tell your colleague, “You handled that brilliantly.”

Tell your partner, “Life is better with you here.”

Tell your child how much you love hearing their stories, even when the story takes twelve minutes and somehow involves a dinosaur, a biscuit and something that happened three Tuesdays ago.

Make it ordinary.

We tend to save meaningful words for meaningful occasions. Birthdays get long messages. Farewells get emotional speeches. Anniversaries get carefully chosen cards. Someone leaves a job and suddenly everyone has paragraphs to write about how much they contributed.

Why wait?

Send the message on a random Wednesday afternoon.

Say thank you for the coffee.

Tell someone you noticed that they checked on you.

Tell a teammate their idea changed the direction of the conversation.

When someone makes you laugh on a difficult day, tell them you needed that.

When a friend always remembers to call, tell them you notice.

There is something powerful about appreciation that arrives without an occasion attached to it. There is no social script demanding it. Nobody expects a heartfelt message at 2:17 on an ordinary Tuesday. That is exactly why it lands differently.

“I was just thinking about you. I’m grateful we’re friends.”

Imagine receiving that.

Most of us carry questions about where we stand with people. We wonder whether we are becoming annoying. Whether we are still wanted in the group. Whether our work is good enough. Whether anyone notices how much effort we are putting in. Whether someone would miss us if we stopped showing up.

Sometimes those questions grow in places where a few simple words could have settled them.

We can become strangely stingy with affection. We feel plenty and express a fraction of it.

Maybe we worry about sounding sentimental. Maybe our families never spoke that way growing up. Maybe we think actions should be enough.

Words are actions too.

A message takes thirty seconds to send and can stay with someone for years.

I still remember compliments people gave me long ago. Small ones. A teacher who noticed something I was good at. A colleague who said they trusted my judgment. A friend who told me they felt comfortable talking to me. They probably forgot saying those things within a day.

I didn’t.

That is the strange mathematics of kindness. Something can cost the giver almost nothing and become precious to the person receiving it.

Specific words matter most.

“You’re amazing” feels good.

“I love how you always make sure nobody at the table feels left out” tells someone they have been seen.

“Great job” is nice.

“The way you stayed calm and helped everyone through that mess made a difference” gives someone something real to hold onto.

Being seen is often hidden inside tiny details.

You remembered.

You noticed.

You listened.

You showed up.

You made this easier.

I feel safe talking to you.

I trust you.

I’m proud of you.

I’m glad you’re here.

Those sentences are small enough to fit into everyday life.

Use them.

Especially with the people closest to you.

Familiarity can make appreciation quieter. Someone becomes such a permanent part of our day that we stop saying the things we once said easily. Gratitude turns into assumption. Love becomes logistics. Conversations become groceries, calendars, school pickups, bills and what time everyone needs to leave tomorrow morning.

Then one evening, say it anyway.

“Hey, I know I don’t say this enough, but I love doing life with you.”

No occasion. No speech. No reason required.

There are people around us walking through days we know very little about. Someone may be carrying rejection, loneliness, fear or a private disappointment while looking completely fine across the table.

Your words will not solve everything they are carrying.

They can give them one thing they do not have to question.

Whether they matter to you.

Make that part really damn obvious.

Beyond the Pond

Some conversations are difficult because the other person disagrees with you. Others are difficult because the two of you are looking at the world from completely different distances.

You are talking about the ocean. They have spent their whole life in a pond.

Tell a frog about waves taller than a house, and it has nothing to compare them with. Explain tides pulling water away from the shore and bringing it back hours later. Describe standing on a beach where the horizon seems endless. None of it fits neatly into what the frog knows.

The pond has edges.

That old metaphor says something useful about people too.

We often assume that if we explain ourselves clearly enough, someone will understand. So we add more detail. We try another example. We tell the story from the beginning. When that fails, we wonder whether we used the wrong words.

Sometimes the words are fine.

Understanding depends on experience. Someone who has always had a supportive family may struggle to grasp why another person keeps their distance from theirs. A person who has never worried about money may see a financial decision as unnecessarily cautious. Someone who has spent twenty years in the same kind of job may find it hard to understand why another person would walk away from a comfortable position and start again.

Their response comes from the world they know.

We do this too.

Every one of us has a pond.

There are experiences we understand only from the outside. We can listen. We can learn. We can care deeply. Yet there will still be parts we cannot fully feel because we have never stood in that exact place.

Remembering that changes how you handle conversations.

You stop treating every disagreement as a debate that needs a winner. You become more careful about where you spend your energy. You notice when someone is curious enough to ask another question and when they have already decided that anything beyond their experience cannot be real.

Curiosity matters more than having seen the ocean yourself.

A person can spend their entire life around ponds and still believe you when you describe the sea. They might ask what salt water tastes like. They may wonder how ships survive storms. Perhaps they will pull out a map because they want to see how far the water goes.

That person is worth talking to.

Experience gives us reference points. Curiosity lets us travel beyond them.

Problems begin when the edge of our own experience becomes the edge of what we believe is possible.

You see this at work all the time. Someone proposes a different way of building something and hears, “That will never work.” Dig a little deeper and the sentence often means, “I have never seen that work.”

Those are very different statements.

It happens in relationships too. You tell someone that something hurt you. Instead of trying to understand why, they explain why it would not have hurt them. The conversation gets stuck because they are measuring your experience using their own ruler.

So you explain harder.

That is usually where exhaustion begins.

You do not owe everyone a guided tour of your ocean.

Some people deserve more context because they care and want to understand. Give them the story. Answer their questions. Let them see what shaped your thinking.

With others, a simple sentence is enough.

“This matters to me.”

“I see it differently.”

“This is the decision I am comfortable with.”

There is freedom in knowing when explanation has reached its limit.

It also makes you more humble when you are the frog.

When someone describes an experience that feels strange, excessive, impossible, or difficult to understand, resist the urge to judge it using the dimensions of your pond. Ask another question. Listen for the parts that do not fit your experience.

There may be an ocean just beyond what you can see.

And when you are the one who has seen it, choose carefully who you keep trying to convince.

Some people will ask about the waves.

Some will insist water cannot possibly go that far.

You already know which conversation is worth having.

When They Don’t Choose You

There is a particular kind of hurt that comes from someone choosing themselves when you were quietly hoping they would choose you.

They may not have meant to hurt you. There may have been no argument, betrayal, or dramatic goodbye. They simply made a decision that worked better for them.

And you were the cost of that decision.

That can be harder to process than someone deliberately treating you badly. Anger has somewhere to go when there is a clear villain. You can point to what happened and say, “That was wrong.”

It gets complicated when the other person had reasons you can understand.

A friend stops making time for you because their life gets busy. A colleague takes an opportunity that leaves you carrying the load. Someone you love makes a decision about their future without considering where it leaves you. A person who promised to be there slowly becomes unavailable when being there starts requiring something from them.

None of these moments needs cruelty to cause pain.

Sometimes all it takes is discovering where you sit on someone else’s list of priorities.

We tend to judge relationships by the good moments. The long conversations. The laughter. The trips. The messages sent at midnight. The promises made when life was easy.

Then comes a moment when choosing you has a price.

It might cost them time, convenience, money, comfort, another opportunity, or a difficult conversation. Suddenly the relationship is being measured in something more expensive than words.

That is when you learn things.

Someone can care about you and still protect their own comfort first. They can value your friendship and still disappear when you need them. They can love you and make a choice that breaks your heart because the alternative asks more of them than they are willing to give.

Both things can exist in the same person.

That is what makes these situations difficult to explain to anyone else. You find yourself defending the person who hurt you.

“They didn’t mean it like that.”

“They had a lot going on.”

“I understand why they did it.”

Maybe every one of those sentences is true.

Understanding someone’s decision does not make the consequences disappear.

If someone drops a glass accidentally, the floor still has broken glass on it. Intent explains how it happened. You still have to deal with what happened next.

Relationships work much the same way.

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what people meant. We replay conversations and search for hidden explanations. We wonder whether we expected too much. Sometimes we even shrink our own disappointment because the other person had a reasonable excuse.

There is another question worth asking.

What did their choice tell you?

Perhaps it told you that the friendship mattered, just within certain limits. Maybe the relationship was important while it remained convenient. Maybe you had been giving someone a place in your life that they had never given you in theirs.

That realization stings because it changes old memories too.

You remember all the times you rearranged your schedule. The calls you answered. The things you showed up for. The compromises you made without keeping score.

You assumed they would do the same when your turn came.

Then your turn came.

They chose themselves.

You are allowed to understand why and still change how much access they have to you.

You can care about someone without building your plans around them anymore. You can forgive them and stop expecting them to show up in ways they have already shown you they will not. You can keep the good memories without using those memories as evidence that the future will be different.

That is not punishment. It is information put to use.

People reveal themselves through small decisions far more often than through big declarations. Watch who calls when there is nothing to gain. Notice who stays when leaving would be easier. Pay attention to who makes room for you when their calendar gets crowded.

And pay attention to yourself too.

There will be moments when you choose yourself and someone else gets hurt. You may have good reasons. You may feel you had no other workable choice. The pain you cause can still be real.

That awareness should make us more careful with each other.

Because sometimes the sentence that hurts most was never spoken.

You simply looked at what someone chose and realized you were hoping they would choose you.

What Matters

There are days when life feels like one long list.

Reply to that message. Finish the work. Pay the bill. Put the dishes away. Pick up groceries. Make the appointment. Figure out dinner. Remember the thing you promised you wouldn’t forget.

Then tomorrow arrives with another list.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, you sit down with your favorite person. Maybe over coffee. Maybe in the car. Maybe at the kitchen table while the dishes are still sitting in the sink.

Someone says something stupid.

You laugh.

Then they laugh because you’re laughing. Within seconds, neither of you can properly explain what was so funny in the first place.

For a few minutes, everything else disappears.

That deadline still exists. The laundry hasn’t folded itself. Your phone probably has a few notifications waiting. None of it feels quite as important while you’re trying to catch your breath from laughing.

I think we underestimate moments like these.

We tend to give the serious parts of life more weight. Work gets a calendar invite. Bills get reminders. Errands get lists. Problems get entire conversations.

Joy usually gets whatever time is left.

That seems backwards.

Some of the best moments in life arrive with no planning at all. A ridiculous inside joke that nobody else would understand. A look across the room that says everything. Singing the wrong lyrics in the car. Bringing up an embarrassing story from ten years ago and laughing just as hard as you did the first time.

These moments won’t appear on a résumé. There’s no certificate for them. Nobody is going to congratulate you for spending twenty minutes laughing on the couch when you could have been doing something productive.

Maybe that’s exactly why they matter.

Life can become painfully transactional when every hour needs a purpose. We start measuring good days by how much we completed. A productive morning feels successful. An unfinished list feels like failure.

Then someone you love makes you laugh until your stomach hurts, and that little scoring system suddenly looks ridiculous.

You remember there are people in your life who know the version of you that doesn’t need to perform.

They know your terrible jokes. They know which stories you always exaggerate. They can tell when you’re pretending everything is fine. They know exactly how to annoy you and, somehow, exactly how to make you laugh five minutes later.

That kind of comfort is easy to overlook because it becomes familiar.

We chase big experiences because they photograph well. Vacations. Celebrations. Fancy dinners. Milestones.

Years later, some of the memories that stay are much smaller.

Laughing in the kitchen at midnight.

A joke during a long drive.

Sitting together after a rough day and slowly finding something funny about it.

Trying to have a serious conversation and completely failing because one person starts laughing.

Those moments rarely announce themselves as important while they’re happening.

And maybe your favorite person isn’t a partner. It could be your best friend, your sibling, your child, your parent, or that one person who can call after six months and somehow pick up the conversation from exactly where you left it.

You know who they are because you feel lighter around them.

You don’t have to explain every silence. You don’t have to fill every minute. You can talk about something serious, drift into complete nonsense, laugh until your face hurts, and somehow feel better afterward.

That’s a pretty good way to spend an evening.

The dishes can wait another twenty minutes.

The email will still be there.

The list will probably never be finished anyway.

Stay at the table a little longer.

Tell the old story again.

Make the terrible joke.

Laugh too loudly.

Let someone you love remind you that today was more than the things you managed to get done.

Still Making Ripples

Some people are in your life for years and slowly become part of its architecture. You know where they’ll sit at the dinner table. You know how they take their coffee. Their names appear in hundreds of photos, messages and stories.

Then there are people who barely stay long enough to leave a footprint.

A colleague you worked with for six months. A teacher whose class you took years ago. Someone you met on a flight and never saw again. A neighbor from a place you once called home. A stranger who helped when you were having a terrible day.

They pass through.

Yet somehow, they stay.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because life has a strange way of showing us how temporary everything is. You live somewhere long enough for the roads to become automatic. The cashier at the grocery store starts looking familiar. You have your coffee place, your usual table, your people. Then one day you pack boxes, hand over keys, say goodbye and get on a plane.

Suddenly, an entire chapter exists only in photographs and memory.

The strange part is what your mind chooses to keep.

It rarely keeps the big things exactly as they happened. Instead, it saves tiny scenes.

Someone laughing so hard they couldn’t finish a sentence.

A friend showing up when you didn’t ask them to.

Your child falling asleep against you after a long day.

A conversation in a parking lot that lasted twenty minutes longer than expected.

The last look at a familiar street before turning the corner.

These moments seemed ordinary while they were happening. Nobody announced that they were important. There was no reason to take a photograph.

Years later, they can still stop you.

I think we underestimate how much of our lives is shaped this way.

We imagine impact as something large. A major decision. A promotion. A move across the world. A relationship that lasts decades.

Sometimes it is much smaller.

One sentence from someone can change how you see yourself. A manager who trusts you with something before you think you’re ready can alter the direction of your career. A friend who calls at exactly the right moment can make a difficult week easier to carry.

They may forget the conversation completely.

You might remember it for the rest of your life.

That works both ways, which is worth thinking about.

We are leaving ripples in other people’s lives all the time without knowing it.

The person you encouraged may still remember your words. The junior colleague you spent an extra half hour helping might tell that story years later. Your child may someday remember a random Tuesday evening when you sat on the floor and played with them while your phone stayed in another room.

You probably won’t know which moments mattered.

That makes the small ones worth paying attention to.

There’s also something comforting about accepting that something doesn’t have to last forever to have been worth having.

We spend so much time trying to hold on. To places. Friendships. routines. Versions of ourselves that belonged to a particular season.

Some things were only meant to meet us there.

A friendship can fade and still have been important. A city can stop being home and remain part of who you became. A job can end while the people you met there continue shaping how you work. A trip can last a week and become a story your family tells for decades.

Length is a poor way to measure meaning.

Maybe that’s why certain memories arrive without warning.

A song plays and suddenly you’re twenty-five again.

You smell something familiar and you’re standing in a kitchen you haven’t seen in years.

You find an old photo while looking for something else and spend five minutes staring at faces you once saw every day.

The moment ended a long time ago.

The ripple kept moving.

And somewhere, in someone else’s life, there may be a small ripple that started with you.

The Ones Who Light Up

There’s a certain kind of happiness you can see before anyone says a word.

You walk into a room and someone’s face changes. Their eyes light up. A smile arrives without effort. They move toward you because they’re glad you’re there.

That feeling is worth paying attention to.

We spend a surprising amount of life trying to earn our place with people. We wonder whether we said the right thing. We replay conversations on the drive home. We make ourselves quieter around some people and more entertaining around others. Sometimes we keep showing up because there’s history, even when being there has started to feel like work.

Then you meet people who make all of that unnecessary.

You can tell them the boring story. You can call when your thoughts are messy. You can sit beside them without filling every silence. They know your habits, your terrible jokes, the things you overthink and the stories you’ve already told five times.

And somehow, they still look happy when you walk through the door.

Those are your people.

As life gets busier, these relationships become easier to spot. Time gets expensive. Between work, family, children, ageing parents, errands, travel and everything waiting on your phone, there are only so many evenings you get to spend with someone.

Pay attention to how you feel after those evenings.

Some people leave you checking every sentence you said. With others, you get into the car feeling lighter. You laughed properly. You forgot to look at your phone. Nobody was keeping score.

That matters.

It also changes how you think about friendship. A long contact list can make you feel connected while your week still feels lonely. Ten people who react to your stories cannot replace one person who notices that you have gone quiet.

Real friendship often looks ordinary.

It’s someone remembering how you take your coffee. A friend sending you a photo because it reminded them of you. Someone making space at the table before you ask. A call with no agenda. A message saying, “You home?” after a long trip.

And yes, sometimes it’s simply that look on their face when they see you.

We should want to be that person for others too.

When someone you care about walks in, look up from your phone. Let them know you noticed. Ask the second question after “How are you?” Remember what they told you last week. Celebrate their good news without turning it into a comparison. Give them the kind of welcome that says their presence changed the room a little.

People remember that.

Life moves people around. Jobs change. Families grow. Friends move to different cities and countries. The person you once saw every Friday might become someone you meet twice a year. Some friendships survive on voice notes sent across time zones and conversations that pick up halfway through an old sentence.

Distance has a funny way of showing you who feels like home.

You start noticing the people you miss for very specific reasons. The friend whose laugh makes you laugh before you know what happened. The person you can call with good news because you know they will be happy for you. The one who has seen several versions of you and never asks you to return to an older one.

Keep those people close.

And when you find yourself constantly chasing someone’s attention, trying to prove your value or wondering whether they even want you around, spend some of that energy elsewhere.

Spend it on the people whose eyes already answered the question.

Be the Safe Harbor

There’s a line I came across recently that stayed with me:

“If you can’t be a safe harbor for someone, at least don’t be the storm that makes their day harder. Be the reason someone remembers that the world can still be gentle.”

It sounds simple. Living it takes a little more work.

We rarely know what someone is carrying when we meet them.

The person taking too long at the checkout counter may have spent the morning at a hospital. The colleague who seems distracted could be dealing with something at home. Someone who hasn’t replied to your message might be exhausted and trying to get through the day. The person who snapped at you may have reached the end of a very difficult week.

We see a few seconds of someone’s life and often build the rest of the story ourselves.

Sometimes we decide they’re rude. Lazy. Arrogant. Careless. Difficult.

Maybe they are having a bad day.

That doesn’t mean we have to accept poor behavior or let people walk over us. Boundaries matter. You can disagree with someone. You can say no. You can call out something that isn’t right.

You can do all of that without making another person feel small.

I think we underestimate how much damage can happen in ordinary moments.

A sarcastic comment in a meeting. An impatient response to someone asking a question. A joke at another person’s expense. Raising your voice because you’re frustrated. Ignoring someone because acknowledging them feels inconvenient.

Five minutes later, you’ve moved on.

They might carry it for the rest of the day.

The opposite works too.

Someone remembers when you made space for them to speak. They remember the message you sent when they were struggling. They remember that you listened without immediately trying to fix everything. They remember when everyone else was impatient and you gave them another minute.

Most kindness looks ordinary while it is happening.

Holding a door. Saying thank you and meaning it. Asking the quiet person in the room what they think. Giving someone credit for their work. Letting a car merge. Speaking respectfully to the waiter when the order is wrong. Calling your parents. Checking on a friend who has gone quiet.

None of these things will make the news.

They still matter.

As I get older, I find myself thinking more about the experience people have after spending time with me.

Did they feel heard?

Did I make their day slightly easier?

Did I add unnecessary weight to something they were already carrying?

That last question can be uncomfortable.

We all have our own storms. Stress follows us home from work. Family pressures build up. Plans fall apart. Money gets tight. Sleep disappears. Someone says the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment.

It becomes easy to pass that frustration along.

A bad meeting becomes an impatient conversation at home. Traffic turns into anger at a stranger. A difficult morning changes the way we speak to someone who had nothing to do with it.

The storm travels.

Stopping it somewhere is a choice.

Sometimes that means staying quiet for ten seconds before responding. Sometimes it means apologizing quickly instead of spending an hour defending what you said. Sometimes it means deciding that being right is less important than how you treat the person standing in front of you.

And sometimes being a safe harbor is much simpler.

Sit with someone.

Listen.

Send the message.

Make the call.

Give them another chance.

Tell them they did a good job.

Ask, “Are you okay?” and stay long enough to hear the real answer.

There is plenty in this world that can make people harder, more suspicious and more guarded.

So when you get the chance to make someone’s day a little lighter, take it.

And on the days when you don’t have enough in you to be someone’s safe harbor, make sure you aren’t the storm.

The Sky Has No Office Hours

Sometimes I watch birds flying overhead and wonder what it would feel like to change direction that easily. A turn in the air, and they’re heading somewhere else. I stand there with my phone in my hand, thinking about an email I still need to answer.

I know I’m imagining the easy parts of their lives. Still, there’s something about watching them that makes me notice how much of my day I’ve handed over to work.

It happens quietly. You reply to a message during dinner because it’ll only take a minute. A meeting runs late, so you skip your walk. By the weekend, you’re too tired to do the things you spent the week looking forward to.

Each decision feels reasonable when you make it. After a while, though, your own life starts needing an appointment.

I’ve caught myself treating rest as something I can earn once everything is finished. The trouble is that finishing one thing usually reveals something else. There’s another request waiting, and someone needs an answer before tomorrow.

You can spend years waiting for work to settle down enough to let you live.

That’s what stayed with me about this post: the reminder to recognise when you’ve given enough. There’s a moment when an extra hour stops helping and starts taking something from you. You’re rereading the same sentence. Your patience is gone. Someone you love is talking, and you’re only catching half of what they say.

I want to get better at noticing that moment.

Work matters to me. I like solving problems, and there’s satisfaction in doing something well. It’s also easy to let being useful become the reason I keep making myself available. Saying yes feels good, especially when people trust you to get things done.

Then saying no begins to feel like letting them down.

Sometimes it means admitting that the day is full. A request can wait until morning. You can care about the outcome while closing your laptop at a sensible hour.

The harder part, I think, is letting yourself enjoy the time you’ve protected. Sitting down without mentally reviewing tomorrow’s tasks takes practice. So does going for a walk and leaving your phone in your pocket.

There are ordinary things I want to have more time for. A conversation with Ana that carries on after dinner. Listening to Keanah explain something with all the seriousness a small child can bring to it. Reading a few pages until I get sleepy.

These moments are easy to postpone because nobody sends a reminder when you miss them.

Tomorrow, work will have plenty to say. Tonight, I’d like to sit outside for a while and watch where the birds go.

Fall Trip: Day 7 – Maroon Bells and More

We started early from Aspen this morning, walking over to catch the free city bus toward Aspen Highlands. One thing we’ve loved about Aspen is how easy they make it to get around without a car. From Highlands, we switched to the shuttle that would take us up Maroon Creek Road toward Maroon Lake.

The shuttle ride itself turned out to be part of the experience.

Our driver shared stories about Aspen and the surrounding mountains along the way. Aspen began as a silver-mining town in the late 1800s, booming after rich silver deposits were discovered nearby. When the silver market collapsed in the 1890s, the town went through decades of decline before reinventing itself in the 20th century as the ski and cultural destination we know today.

It was fascinating hearing about that history while looking out at a place now associated with ski resorts, beautiful homes and some of the most expensive real estate in America.

And then we reached Maroon Lake.

The Maroon Bells rise more than 14,000 feet above sea level, with Maroon Peak at 14,163 feet and North Maroon Peak at 14,019 feet. Their name comes from the reddish-maroon color of the mudstone that forms much of the mountains.

That rock also makes the Bells notoriously fragile. Unlike many of Colorado’s granite peaks, the sedimentary rock here fractures easily. Climbers have even given the Bells a rather intimidating nickname, the “Deadly Bells.”

From beside Maroon Lake, though, they looked completely peaceful.

We were lucky to have a beautiful morning. The mountains towered above the lake, patches of fall color remained around us, and every few steps seemed to offer another photograph.

After seven days of driving through Colorado, it felt good to simply stand there for a while.

No long hike. No rushing to the next viewpoint.

Just Maroon Lake and two of the most recognizable mountains in Colorado in front of us.

We eventually caught the shuttle back to Aspen Highlands and returned to the hotel. Bags packed, SUV loaded, and it was time to say goodbye to Aspen.

Our drive followed the Roaring Fork Valley through Basalt and Carbondale toward Glenwood Springs. After some of the huge mountain-driving days earlier in the trip, this stretch felt wonderfully relaxed.

We stopped in Glenwood Springs for lunch before beginning our final long drive across the Rockies.

And what a drive it was.

Soon after leaving Glenwood Springs, I-70 enters Glenwood Canyon, one of the most dramatic highway corridors we’ve driven on this trip.

The Colorado River runs through the bottom of the canyon while enormous rock walls rise on either side. Interstate 70 somehow squeezes through the same narrow space, sometimes right beside the river and sometimes on elevated sections built above the canyon floor.

The engineering is impressive once you realize how difficult it was to build a major interstate here while protecting the river and surrounding landscape. The final Glenwood Canyon section of I-70 opened in 1992 after years of construction.

And running beside us through it all was the Colorado River.

This is the same river that continues west through Utah and eventually carves its way through the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Seeing it here, much farther upstream and surrounded by the Rockies, gave us a completely different picture of a river we’d heard about so many times.

The canyon eventually opened up and we continued east toward Vail.

Driving through Vail was another reminder of how much Colorado changes within a few hours. Vail itself is a relatively young town, developed after the ski resort opened in the early 1960s. Its European-inspired village and huge ski mountain helped turn it into one of America’s best-known ski destinations.

Looking up at those slopes in October, it was fun trying to imagine the same mountains covered in snow with skiers everywhere a couple of months from now.

From Vail we climbed again, crossed Vail Pass and continued toward our final major mountain landmark of the trip.

The Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel.

At more than 11,000 feet above sea level, the tunnel carries I-70 directly beneath the Continental Divide. The westbound Eisenhower bore opened in 1973, followed by the eastbound Johnson bore in 1979.

Driving into a tunnel underneath the Continental Divide felt like a fitting way to finish our week of Colorado mountain crossings.

Over the past few days we’ve crossed Red Mountain Pass, Molas Pass, Coal Bank Pass and McClure Pass. We’ve driven the Million Dollar Highway, climbed through the San Juans and wound our way through some of the most beautiful mountain roads we’ve ever seen.

Today, instead of climbing over the Continental Divide, we drove straight through it.

Once we emerged from the tunnel, the landscape began its long descent toward Denver. The giant mountain walls slowly gave way to foothills, the roads widened, and eventually the Denver metro area appeared ahead.

The change in temperature through the day was quite something too. We had started the morning bundled up at Maroon Bells, with the cold mountain air making jackets and layers essential. As we left the high country behind and descended toward Denver, it kept getting warmer. By the time we reached the Denver area, the jackets were off and it felt like we had travelled into a different season in the space of a few hours. From a chilly morning beneath snow-dusted peaks to a warm Colorado afternoon, it was another reminder of just how much the landscape and weather can change across this state.

By late afternoon we reached Brighton and checked into our final hotel of the trip.

Seven days into our Colorado fall road trip, today gave us one last collection of places that showed just how varied this state is.

This morning we were standing beside Maroon Lake beneath two 14,000-foot peaks.

A few hours later we were following the Colorado River through Glenwood Canyon.

Then came Vail, another climb into the Rockies, and a drive beneath the Continental Divide through the Eisenhower Tunnel.

Tonight we’re in Brighton, with the mountains behind us and our bags slowly being packed for the flight back to Dallas tomorrow!