airport-739311_640Life as a Miracle for the Colando couple seems to revolve around airports, not a door.

Life as a Miracle related to travel validates our quest, our zest for forays throughout the world.

The one I’ll relate in this post rolls back to 1993, when my husband traveled-for-a-month on business+fun in Europe. Sigh. While I remained at home to finalize the house remodel, sans front door, sans driveway and patio, sans hot water hook-up to the shower I used each morning. No thrill in the chill.

Further, for meal prep I walked from the kitchen to the refrigerator housed in the garage during our five-month remodel, a task uncompleted when Larry was compelled to leave home. For a month. Business-was-Business; he had his and I had mine.

Actually, it was better that he was away during the reacclimatizing. Unpacking the items stored during the remodel and placing them appropriately throughout our home is/was a lengthy process. Reinhabiting a forever-changed space has inherent problems and discomforts, fits and false starts abound. Anyone who’s moved a lot knows, but not my impatient, ‘I want my nest restored now’ husband.

suitcasesI was to be rewarded for being a good sport by flying to Dusseldorf, where my husband received an international packing award, well-earned+well-rewarded. He met me at the airport; my arrival was his birthday gift and, after the convention ended, we intended to tour Amsterdam and Brussels for a week, then fly home.

We transferred from Dusseldorf hotel to the train station via my husband’s business buddy’s handy-dandy van. Easy-peasy, mini-miles, he said; he was returning home to London. Larry, the guy, and I transferred all of our bags from the back of the van to a porter’s cart at the curb. Three bags stacked high.

The English friend drove off. We were feeling blissful-and-blessed, Americans free for a vagabond vacation.

Except. Except. Except.

Except when we strode up to the ticket counter, the black satchel with his business papers – and our airline tickets home – was not on the porter’s cart. One too many fare-thee-well departures hugs, emotion addled our brains.

Search, rifle-and-riffle the bag stack, search-and-research memory banks. Yikes! The black satchel must have remained behind in the Englishman’s van.

Nothing to do but call him. With the integrity of my congenial husband’s mega-traveler, mega-watt smile, the counter agent allowed us to use the phone. Trust given, well-earned.

Larry’s English pal answered. Yes, the man had a cell phone, a brick-sized device, in his van. Built-in.

The plan was easy-peasy for a flexible, prone-to-problem-solving businessman, a proper Englishman and true friend. He’d leave the black satchel with its precious contents in the American Airlines business lounge at the Brussels airport. Easy-peasy, mini-miles, no inconvenience, he said. Thank goodness I had the train tickets in my purse – we vacationed.

Trust God’s improbable plan, for who knows why I had the train tickets in my hands, the un-well-traveled partner.

My husband displayed his nerves-of-steel, faith in his friend and his God. He truly vacationed. We had another ‘time of our lives’, cavorting like unfettered children to celebrate the rigors of remodel and all the collateral damage of life.

What was not to like in the canals of Amersterdam, its brown cafes, art museums, and the Keukenhoff Gardens, the best in the world we think.http://www.keukenhof.nl/en/

480648_477523788967383_859050373_nWe bought packets of bulbs for our entire family. Christmas gifts purchased in May… That’s not a miracle, that’s typical for me. Easy-peasy. Ask my family, whose members proffer gift lists in late fall.

Life as a Miracle. It’s everywhere if you choose to look, listen, smell, and feel. God cherishes and blesses your choice. Trust given, well-deserved. Easy-peasy.

PS Larry still has the black briefcase-like satchel, and we use it to hold tickets on every trip. Where in the world do you think we are traveling next?