A little over a month ago my grandpa passed away. After weeding through the security line at the airport, I ended up at the check point. On previous trips I had always been able to sneak larger-than-3-oz. sized fluids/liquids. Go figure that on this trip, when I was already incredibly bummed out and silent I would get caught smuggling. My defense? The bottle, which was marked at 4 oz. was practically empty, and therefore well below the 3 oz. limit. The guard wasn't going to let it fly. He gives me a smile, and then asks if I was headed home from school (turns out that to many strangers I look like I'm a teenager, even though I'm going on 25). I thought about lieing so I could get through the line without having to talk about anything too personal, but in the end the idea took too much energy to carry out. I tell him where I'm headed and he tells me to stay put. He walks back with this:
Turns out that he used to give out hugs but was told that that wasn't "professional." It just goes to show you that the unexpected really does catch you by surprise. Standing in the middle of that crowded airport, I felt a little less alone and a lot more optimistic. His gesture helped me to focus on how wonderful a person my grandpa was. Now I'm just trying to live by example.
