The Traffic Jam That Changed Everything

It became our tradition. And slowly, it changed us. I stopped checking my phone so much. He started asking more questions. We laughed more. Listened more.

Then one afternoon in a quiet coastal town, we met a girl sitting alone on a bench, hugging her knees. She couldn’t find her mom. We stayed with her until a frantic woman came running from a nearby shop, tears streaming down her face. She hugged her daughter like she’d never let go again.

Walking away, my husband glanced at me. “You falling asleep in that traffic jam… maybe it was supposed to happen.”

I didn’t answer right away, but I felt it too — that sense that small choices can ripple farther than we’ll ever know.

Months later, we were back in that same town when a woman stopped us on the street. It was her — the girl’s mother. She hugged us hard and told us her husband had died two weeks before that day, and losing her daughter, even for a few minutes, might have broken her completely.

She ran a non-profit now, helping grieving families, and she said our blog — the one I’d started to document our little road trips — had inspired her. She handed us an envelope, thanked us again, and walked away, leaving us quiet and holding hands.

That was when I knew: the detour had become the path.

We still take those drives. We still help when we can. And we still believe the best stories start with a wrong turn.