Things at work were going much worse than I had planned. To get this job I waited for half a year, virtually homeless, sleeping on a gracious friend's couch and living out of a single duffel bag. During that waiting time I got a job valet parking cars at a restaurant making minimum wage. I couldn't pay my rent let alone buy food. To keep from starving I took the leftover bread rolls when the servers put them by the trash at the end of the night. The bread and the one meal per shift we were allowed kept me going, except for the nights when I was so busy it seemed like I ran for the entire 8 hours fetching cars. Once I had the job I waited and worked so hard for, I realized it was nothing like I had hoped. I was miserable and seriously questioning my life decisions when Matt and Amanda asked me to perform their wedding ceremony. It was to be on the beach in Tulum, Mexico. I was speechless. Honored. Sometimes you have no idea how loved you are.
On the day the women were to visit the spa, the men had a guided fishing trip planned, but it was out of my budget so I wasn't planning on going. Matt's dad Steve and I had developed a deep friendship in a few short years and somehow he knew how badly I needed this, even more so than I did. He had decided that I was going even if he had to pay for it, and that was it. That night I slept in a hammock on the beach. We struck out before dawn and drove on a jeep road for nearly two hours to Punta Allen. It's the most beautiful, serene place I've ever seen, nearly untouched by modern civilization. Our guide Juan took us in the boat a few miles across the bay and had us get out into water that was astonishingly warm and only waist deep! You could literally watch the schools of fish come and go the water was so clear and blue. After a few hours he took us around the point and through mangrove channels that were perfectly carved out of the jungle. In most places it was like a mangrove tunnel. And after a few minutes of ducking branches and slowly navigating these narrow channels, it would open up into a wide area of shallow water they call "flats" and we'd be traveling at full speed. To me, it was something out of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. I couldn't keep myself from shivering. The effect on me was manifesting itself physically, yet it felt like a movie. In a few short days I went from the environs of misery, hunger, self-doubt and anxiety to those of awe, peace, tranquility and inspiration. I cannot begin to tell you what an effect this can have on a man's spirit.
I think about Steve all the time although we don't talk very often. I hope he doesn't have too difficult a time with the images of war that must plague him. And one day I hope he knows how his gesture helped lift the spirits of a man that was nearly broken.
Steve with a beautiful fish.
That's Juan and Steve, Matt giving the thumbs up.
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