[Below is Tez's touching story of a stranger and her father, from the opening circle of a retreat. Originally transcribed in March 2020.]

I'm so grateful to be here. I am Tez. I have a couple of things that come to mind when I think of unexpected encounters, but one in particular is screaming to come out today.

About eight years ago, I was a little bit lost. They have a saying that when you lose someone very special in your life, you go through an array of feelings. You feel hatred, you feel victimized, you feel sad, you feel joy, you feel shame, you feel guilt. And I was kind of feeling that cocktail of emotions. I lost my father after a year of suffering, but I was extremely grateful that I could be of service to him during that final year of us being together.

But I was confused. I thought, 'What am I going to do now?' I had left my job that year, and I wasn't sure what my next steps were.

As we were standing in a condolence line -- my mother, myself and my brother -- a gentleman walked up to me and shook my hand and said, "You don't know me, but I'm alive today because of your father".

I took a step back and I said, "Well, thank you very much".

And he said, "I am just going to tell you this very quickly. Two years ago, I had a very bad car accident and I was proclaimed 97% dead. And the only reason they took me to the hospital was because I had a heartbeat -- a very faint heartbeat".



My father was an insurance man. Somebody had given this man's relative the contact information of my dad, saying, "If you ever have any problems, contact him."

This man's wife, I believe, contacted somebody who contacted my dad.

She said, "Look, we don't have any insurance. My husband's in the hospital and he's fighting for his life. But we need to do something."

My dad just said, "Leave it to me, I'm going to fix this."

In a couple of hours, he managed to do something. And pretty much after that, the entire situation changed at that minute for this gentleman.

The minute I heard that story, something happened to me. I felt like there was a divine hand on my shoulder, and I knew that everything was just going to be okay. Guidance would take me in a direction where, if I just surrender to serving love, that it would just guide me and take me in the directions that I needed to go to.

Everything since that point pretty much has been in flow -- from the businesses that I run, to the people that I meet, to even being here right now. I am extremely grateful. Grateful to life, grateful to surrender, grateful to flow, grateful to divine guidance, grateful to my ancestors, and to my dad.