Long time, No see

I met up with a friend of mine who was in town for the week to grab a cup of coffee. I'll call him Paco. I hadn't seen him in probably a year, but he's one of those friends that when you sit down with, you immediately connect with again. Paco has seen some pretty tough times in his life and had pretty everything taken away from him. He's a guy who is wired to encourage others and some times needs to be encouraged, and I've been had the privilege of being one of those people for him.

We met at the Panera, the sight of some pretty painful meetings in the past as we'd navigated some tough times together over cups of coffee. Even though life keeps throwing my friend some pretty crazy curve-balls, I've seen Paco go through huge growth through it all. He's more grounded in his identity and his relationship with God than I've ever seen him. He's at peace with who he is called to be and how he is wired up. As he shared with me some tough times that he and his family are experiencing, I laughed and told him that if I were him and had read my blog posts about my struggles to get my Northwest Elite status, the first words out of my mouth would be "F@## Dave Kurt and his Northwest status".

We sat there talking for 2 1/2 hours about our lives, our jobs, our careers and our families. At one point Pedro spoke some words to me that caught me completely off guard, made my lip quiver, shut me up and brought me to tears. I don't want to share it here, but it was one of those things that I will lock away in my heart forever. I left my meeting with Paco with this feeling in my chest that I can't describe, but his words were this huge gift, maybe one of the best I'll receive all Christmas (except for the hand-painted piece of wood from my kids). I wanted to write this all down because it was such a huge deal for me, I wanted to share it in part and also capture it so that in five years I can go back and revisit. Writing it down, I'm not sure that it was something that could really be shared without being in my head.