Dear Graham,
If I had to name the greatest gift of moving abroad to Panama, it would be letting go—loosening that white-knuckle, controlling grip many of us have on life and learning to trust the amazing grace that guides us.
Tom and I are rarely late. Ask any of our friends, and they’ll tell you we’re almost always early, if not right on time. And yet here we were, making one of the biggest moves of our lives, and we were running late. Our flight from Denver on COPA was scheduled for April 7 at 11:15 p.m. I glanced at the dashboard clock: 8:00 p.m. We still had to drive to the airport and return the rental car. I suggested Tom drop me at the COPA departure gate with our ten bags while he returned the rental.
We unloaded the bags at the departure entrance. Tom drove off while I looked for a large luggage cart. Two gentlemen helped me find one and a man strong enough to push it. Together we piled the luggage onto the cart, and he pushed it to the COPA check-in counter while I walked beside him with my carry-on and personal item. At the counter, I started the check-in process and told the attendant Tom would arrive after dropping off the rental car. She explained she couldn’t check his bags before he arrived because of security regulations, but she began weighing and preparing mine.
She also explained that if he didn’t arrive by 9:45 p.m., the computers would automatically shut down, and she could no longer check us in. I frantically called and texted Tom: he had to get there by 9:35 or we’d miss the flight. He raced to the airport but arrived ten minutes too late. The attendant—kind and professional—returned my bags and ticket and rebooked us on the same flight departing the following night, April 8.
We were exhausted. Tom was furious that he’d been turned away after only ten minutes and baffled that the system would close more than an hour before departure. But international flights have strict rules.
The airline agent arranged a room for us at the Hampton Inn and directed us to the shuttle with our ten bags. We vowed never again to travel with that much luggage. At the hotel, they apologized because the building was under construction, and the first room they gave us smelled strongly of sewage from the bathroom pipes. They moved us—and all our bags—to another room down the hall. We paid for that night and for the next day until 7:00 p.m. so we would have a place to keep everything until our 11:15 p.m. flight. We collapsed into bed and slept like the dead.
The next morning, we rented another car and drove to Boulder to finish last-minute tasks: money transfers, IRA forms, and paperwork at my real estate office. We didn’t realize it when we missed the flight, but we needed that extra day. In a way, we had already begun to practice letting go—letting God. A higher power had been guiding us all along; we just didn’t know it yet.
With love,
CC
