I was flying home from my dad’s funeral. I was a complete wreck, sitting right in the middle seat between two strangers on a packed red-eye flight. I had used up all the tissues in my bag and could not stop sniffling, trying to muffle the ugly sounds of my crying so I would not bother anyone. My eyes were swollen, my head throbbed, and the air in the cabin felt thin and hot.

The man sitting right next to me in the aisle seat was a big guy in a crisp business suit. He had been typing away on his laptop since takeoff, the blue light reflecting off his glasses. But after hearing me sniffle for the tenth time, he slowly closed the screen, pushed the laptop into the seat pocket in front of him, and turned his head.

Rough week? he asked gently. His voice was low and calm, not annoyed like I had feared.

My dad died, I said, my voice cracking so badly I barely recognized it.

He did not say I am sorry. People always said that, and by then it just sounded like a script they were reading off a card. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a worn, slightly bent deck of cards with a casino logo on the back.

Do you know how to play Gin Rummy? he asked, thumbing the top card.

Yeah, I said, wiping my nose with the back of my sleeve. My dad taught me.

Good, he said, giving a small, reassuring nod. I am tired of working. Play with me?

PART 2

We started playing right there on the fold-down tray table, squeezing our elbows in so we did not bump the people next to us. At first my hands shook so badly I dropped a couple of cards into my lap, and he just waited patiently, looking away until I picked them up. We played hand after hand as the cabin lights dimmed to a soft blue glow.

For three hours, I was not a grieving daughter sitting in a middle seat trying not to fall apart. I was just a card player trying to block him from getting a meld. We laughed when one of us drew a card the other desperately needed. We argued in whispers about whether a certain discard rule counted because my dad played it one way and he played it another.

Time stopped feeling like a heavy weight pressing down on my chest. I forgot about the empty house waiting for me, the pile of paperwork on the kitchen counter, and the cold reality that my father was really gone.

PART 3

When the plane finally bumped down onto the runway and the brakes squealed, we packed up our things while everyone else stood up and jammed into the aisle. He shuffled the deck one last time, slipped the cards back into their cardboard box, and handed them straight to me.

Keep them, he said. Teach your kids.

I thanked him, mumbled something about getting my carry-on down, and shuffled off the plane with the rest of the crowd. It was only later, when I was sitting on the shuttle bus to long-term parking and reaching into my coat pocket for my car keys, that I felt the corner of a heavy card stock slip between my fingers. It was his business card.

I looked down at the raised lettering. He was the chief executive officer of a major tech company that built software used by millions of people every single day. I stared at the name and the title, thinking about the glowing laptop screen I had interrupted three hours earlier. He could have worked the entire flight. He could have closed his eyes and slept or ignored me completely. Instead, he chose to play cards with a stranger who was falling apart in a middle seat.

ENDING

I put the business card back into my pocket, wrapped my fingers around the worn deck of cards he had given me, and finally felt a deep, steady breath fill my lungs. Time is the greatest gift you can give.