The canceled flight and the two ships crossing in “the night”

I don’t know what happened to all of my time but the week came to an end and I was scrambling at midnight to pack for my Colombia trip. To clarify, I was packing at midnight for a morning flight where we’d be leaving the house at 4 am!

Trying to find all my summer clothes — since I hadn’t touched any of it in Seattle for several months — I heard Bryce yell in frustration from the living room.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as he starred at his computer screen.

“Our flight just got canceled,” he replied.

“WHAT??” I shouted as suddenly a series of spiraling events started infiltrating my mind. But, then I followed with “Which one?”

After all, we’d be taking four flights to get to Colombia.

Once he explained that it was our first flight — yes, the one that was supposed to start boarding in approximately five hours — and that the airline booked us on another flight two hours after our original scheduled departure, I felt a little better.

We were originally going to have an eight-hour layover in San Francisco where we had planned to go into the city to hangout and grab lunch. Now this time would decrease to six hours. I guess that would be fine.

My dad was going to drive Bryce and I to the airport for our original flight and hang out in the area for a bit to wait for the arrival of relatives who’d be coming into town to spend Christmas with my parents. And now with this shift in flight times, everything may be a bit more convenient for my dad, the family Lyft driver.

I got like two hours of sleep. Woke up around 4 am to touch base with my dad to let him know of the new flight time (as he was obviously asleep when we first learned of the change). Went back to sleep for an hour. And then we headed to the airport around 5:45 am.

Our relatives texted my dad saying that they had landed at the airport as we were on our way there.

“The timing of all of this may be spot on,” my dad said.

And, it was!

As we were literally like two minutes away from the terminal, my uncle texted my dad — whose phone I was managing as my dad drove — and said they had gotten their bags and were waiting at the curb of arrivals.

When my dad pulled up, we all surprised my uncle, aunt and cousin as they were not expecting to see Bryce and I. We gave each other hugs and helped them with their luggage.

“It’s like we’re two ships crossing in the night!” my aunt said.

It was all perfect timing. Despite a brief — no more than four-minute interaction — I was so happy to see my relatives, who I’d be missing with going to Colombia. My family, including my extended relatives, are very close and we usually all spend Christmas together.

Who would have thought that all of this was made possible by a short-notice canceled-flight.