We had just finished a short family trip to Italy. Everything was magical, beautiful, and distracting. Maybe too distracting. On the last day, we stretched our time to the very limit. A quick city trip to Bergamo before the flight. A late rental car return. A shuttle bus to the airport. Long queues. Booster seats to check in.
By the time we reached the counter, I was begging to cut in line. People were kind. The airline staff were not.
“The desk closed in front of us. At the gate, they turned us away.”
And that was it.
The flight was gone.
I will never forget the look in my children’s eyes as we ran through the airport—three kids, backpacks, booster seats, all of us sweating and gasping, desperate to make it. Their hope faded into despair as the gate shut before us. My youngest son, only four, cried as he tried to keep up: “Please, someone pick me up!” But we couldn’t. We were carrying everything already. All I could say was: “You can do it. Just a little more.”
When we finally collapsed on the floor, defeated, I felt broken. I blamed the staff. The system. Myself. I felt I had let my family down.
And yet… something shifted.
We picked ourselves up, walked out silently, and decided:
“If this happened, it must be for a reason.”
Instead of drowning in frustration, we rebooked. We found a beautiful hotel with a spa. We had dinner, laughter, massages, and one of the best breakfasts of our lives. It became a memory we will never forget.
The next day, we arrived 3 hours early for our flight—only to discover it was delayed by 3 hours. Six hours at the airport, no apologies. A missed flight by minutes is final. A delay by hours is “normal.”
And that’s when it hit me: Timing is everything. But timing is rarely in our control.
Life will always hand us delays, closed gates, and missed opportunities.
“We can collapse under them—or we can turn them into moments of connection, presence, and joy.”
That missed flight gave us one of the most precious gifts of all: a memory of resilience, togetherness, and joy in the unexpected.
Sometimes, what feels like a failure is simply life’s way of inviting us to see a different kind of beauty.
Love,
Laszlo
