Memories of Awkwardness

I just remembered a very awkward, and yet very amusing, encounter I had a few months back. In January, I flew out to Colorado to represent RTS at Young Life's Staff Training at Frontier Ranch. My mission: Get YL staff people to get seminary credit with us. It was an easy assignment. And it turned out to be a great trip, despite several nights of 6 degree weather.

I had been emailing back and forth with a woman in the YL office named Barb. I had filled her in on when I would be arriving to the airport and she had notified me that she would be there to pick me up. Keep in mind, we had been emailing. I have no idea what she looks like, how old she is, or even how we are going to get in contact with each other when I touched down in Colorado. Oh, but I would know in time.

So I land that afternoon sometime and find my way to the baggage claim, surveying the crowd for anyone holding signs or wearing YL garb. There was an older woman standing alone by the carousel holding a handmade cardboard sign and as I approached her, what was black-markered onto the cardboard read "Matt." I approached her smiling and said, "Hey, I think you may be waiting for me." Her eyes lit up and she set down her sign to embrace me. Sweet woman, I thought. I returned the hug and said, "Hey, it is so nice to meet you," but I was interrupted by her - "Oh my goodness!! You have changed so much" (by this point, she was touching my face). She was gazing into my eyes in a way that gave me confidence that this woman was indeed not Barb. I stepped back a bit and interrupted her (she was going on about something) and asked her, "Are you looking for Matt Howell?" Her smile began to fade. "I think you may be looking for a different person." We both gave an awkward laugh, she picked up her a sign and moved along. Here, I had just embraced a complete stranger...an elderly woman...one that touched my face and gazed into my eyes. The awkwardness persisted though, because I had to stand there and wait for my luggage and she had to stand there and wait for "Matt." I watched her out of the corner of my eye to find out if Matt ever showed up and what he would have looked like.

He never did. And by the time I left and got paired up with my real ride (which incidentally was not Barb at all), she was still standing alone beside the luggage carousel holding her little sign and waiting for "Matt.". I sort of want to think that she is simply a lonely old woman who spends her days waiting at the baggage claim holding a sign with a generic name on it in the hopes that she might, for a moment, feel what it is like to be embraced. In that event, I am glad I made her day. She certainly made mine....at least from the standpoint of, "Wow, I just held a complete stranger in my arms."