I’m an introvert at heart. Anyone who knows me knows that I can sometimes be overwhelmed in large groups of people, especially in places where I know absolutely no one. Part of it is an anxiety thing, and part of it is genuinely believing that I’m not the “right person” to be conversing with them.

I’m trying to grow in this area and get better at talking to people I don’t know. I knew I would be flying a lot this week, and I gave myself a simple goal: talk to a person I sit next to (and respect the social cue to stay silent if need be…no one wants to sit next to THAT guy).

I love traveling solo. You can go at your own pace and don’t have to worry about anyone else’s inopportune bathroom breaks or lost luggage, and you can sit and watch Netflix (P.S. I cannot thank them enough for their new download feature IT IS PERFECTION). But one of the huge benefits of traveling alone is that you’re usually stuck sitting next to another solo traveler and immediately have at least one thing in common to talk about.

My seat was next to this lovely woman who was heading home. We small talked, she started thumbing through a book I was reading… and started to cry. As it turns out, she had just left the funeral of a dearly loved family member who had committed suicide… and of course, she had landed on a page that read, “Even if people leave, even if they die, they leave us better.”

I have lost a lot of friends to suicide and other untimely causes in the past couple of years. Some call it a side effect of growing up, but I call it devastating. When you are going through incredibly hard trials in life do you ever stop in the middle of your hopelessness and wonder if maybe this will mean something later? I convince myself that maybe this heartbreaking moment has to be part of something much bigger because nothing else makes sense. I was sitting on a plane (that I wasn’t even supposed to be on thanks to a cancellation) going on a trip I had only booked days before, here is this woman going through one of the hardest times in her life, and there I was having just healed from similar circumstances. Two paths perfectly crossed.

We talked for most of the ride, I empathized with the never ending thoughts of ‘could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.’ We shared stories. We laughed. She cried. But I find my first instinct when someone is crying is to say, “Oh, don’t cry.” Not in a mean way, but more comforting like “oh, please don’t cry, look, you can be happy! Here’s a joke!” It’s my go-to. My fallback when things are falling apart around me is to pull out the humor because it at least gets the mind off of reality. But as she sat next to me in her grief she reminded me that it’s okay to cry. Grief is real and should not be avoided or hidden deep inside. It was in her weak moments that she showed me the beauty of her strength – strong enough to cry in front of strangers, strong enough to openly talk about her feelings, strong enough to look me in the eye and tell me it’s okay to lean into the fall.

I don’t like feelings. I tend to avoid anything that remotely looks like sad emotions, but this can also be unhealthy when faced with the wall of grief and circumstances outside my control. When I refuse to feel proper emotions and hide my grief out of embarrassment it elongates the healing process. I did not realize how desperately I needed someone to look me in the eye and say “It’s okay to show grief no matter how much time has passed,” just as much as she needed someone to look her in the eye and say, “It’s not your fault.”

I like to run away from pain, but I’m learning it’s okay to lean into it because having a broken heart that’s healing becomes one of the greatest ways to connect and heal with other broken hearts. We entered that plane as two strangers and walked out as two sisters in the war of grief: one having just left the battlefield, and one just stepping onto it. Two new friends helping one another and not giving up hope.

God’s divine timing.