The Gifts of the Day Part 3

September 3, 2026

As a nine-year-old boy, I had an ocean adventure that remains one of my most cherished memories. And recently, I received a gift connected to that long-ago voyage.

For all of my nine years, I had heard about my English grandfather, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We had received letters and packages from them, but my brother and I had never met any of our family from my mother’s native land.

I remember the day Mother told us we would be traveling to England to be with her family. I remember it as if it were yesterday. She said, “Boys, this summer we are going by ship to England to be with all my family who are also your family. We will travel on a cargo ship that takes twelve passengers, and we will leave from New Orleans. Your father will stay here, work, and take care of things.”

During that three-week voyage across the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, I had the time of my young life. The passengers included an older Irishman who wore thick glasses and read a lot; a German woman with her three-year-old boy; a college student going abroad to study; and three teenage brothers, the sons of a foreign diplomat. And there was also, among us, a stowaway.

On the ship, we had new adventures every day—from going to the bridge and steering the ship with the captain to exploring the engine room, to getting to know the passengers and crew. And there was the excitement of throwing bottles containing messages over the side and wondering where they might someday wash ashore.

Lately, I have been trying to find some of those passengers. I would love to compare our memories of the voyage and learn things that, as a nine-year-old, I could not have known. This endeavor is what we do in the mature years of our lives… we reflect, we review, we remember, and we relive much of the past.  Psychologists say the process of integrating the person’s life memories into a meaningful whole is a natural life task—part of self-actualization.

But in my effort of bringing things together, I could not find anyone who was also on the Loppersum with my family.  Search after search did not find any of the people whose names I remembered. Every time I found a promising lead, it ended in a dead end.

One day last week, I was on the verge of giving up—of finally consigning the voyage to the relics of the past. But the thought of giving up made me sad, so I decided to make one more attempt. I had found a lead that involved contacting the director of alumni affairs at a secondary school. I had the telephone number in front of me. Should I call, or should I finally let this rest? I asked myself.

It seemed too sad to bring my search to an end. So, in a fit of hope, I called the number. A pleasant woman answered. I explained whom I was looking for, and instead of saying, “That information is private,” she said, “Of course. What is his name, and what year might he have graduated?” I told her. After a minute at her computer, she said, “Here he is.” And she gave me his email address.

By that afternoon, I had established contact with one of those teenage sons of the foreign diplomat—a boy I had known aboard a cargo ship in 1959, now a man in his eighties.

My gift? It was not only reconnecting with a long-lost fellow passenger I had not spoken to since 1959. It was also a gentle reminder of something about the soul. Sometimes, just at the moment when we are ready to give up, something within the soul arises. Something says:

Go ahead. Do it.

Go ahead. Take one more chance.

Go ahead. Toss that message out there—over the Internet or overboard into the sea.

And when we listen to that quiet nudge of the soul, we open ourselves to the possibility of the miraculous. At least two gifts arrived that day. One was the connection; the other was the reminder of the soul’s sincere desire. 

Spiritual Practice

Think of something meaningful you have nearly given up trying to accomplish or recover. See what happens when you revisit it and consciously try one more time. 

Inquiry

Why would you make one more attempt? 

Prayer

Dear God, For Your mercy, I am grateful.

Amen