Late Flight, Long Fight

This morning started with a kiss goodbye at 5am. My husband quietly slipped out of bed, and gently kissed me before driving himself to the airport. He parked right at the terminal and made it just in time for the early morning flight. Only to find out: it was delayed. Still, he kept texting me from the lounge, keeping me updated as if I were his anchor in the middle of a long, blurry day ahead. I remind him to pray.

At 10:45am, I finally got another message. Just one word: “Landed.” I knew what came next. No time to chat. He’d be diving into meetings with investors, going through rounds of negotiations that, honestly, have started to feel like déjà vu. The kind where you don’t know if it’s the last fight or just one more in a long series of battles to keep something alive. For anyone watching from the outside, it's just another business trip. For him, it's battle. A quiet one. A costly one.

You have no idea how much effort he puts into keeping the company afloat. And truthfully, most people probably don’t want to know. They only want their “rights”, their comfort. But being a leader means thinking beyond yourself. While most employees think of feeding their own families, a leader thinks about feeding dozens, sometimes hundreds. My husband hasn’t taken any salary for quite long time, to make sure the company’s runway is enough, so that the employees get their salaries. But he shows up every day, facing all the battles. And this time, I takeover the role of being the family’s provider. 

Around 5pm, he texted again. He had just finished a meeting with Michel and Gina, our long-time mentors who are finally leaving Singapore after 29 years to return to the U.S. to be closer to their kids. Moment like this hits different. They reminded us that time moves fast, and even strong roots may someday need replanting. Their farewell stung a little, but there’s beauty in endings that bring people home. His company, Mindsigns Health, actually works with several hospitals in Arizona. It almost feels symbolic: like the seeds we've planted here might just continue to bloom over there.

Later that night, the flight delays started again. Another six-hour wait. He texted back and forth, and called me from the airport lounge. I fell asleep at around 10pm. At 1am, I woke up and found he’s not home yet. I checked my phone in the other room (I’m building habit to not sleep with my phone around nowadays). “Just arrived”, he texted me at 00.09. I checked on Find My app, he’s on the highway, about 20 minutes away. 

He finally got home at almost 2am. He had only five hours to rest before driving two more hours to meet his lawyer in the morning. We hugged in the hallway, a long, tired hug. After changing clothes, he fell asleep holding my hands like we always do. Like it’s our silent promise to each other that no matter how hard the day gets, we will always come back to this. 

Just like the Bible says: “Each day has enough trouble of its own.” We don’t carry tomorrow’s weight today. We carry today’s. And then tomorrow, we rise and carry again. That’s how we keep going. Not by avoiding the burdens, but by meeting them one day at a time, one fight at a time.

So if you’re in the middle of your own quiet fight, I just want to remind you: you’re not alone. Maybe no one sees it, maybe they’ll never understand it. But you’re not weak for being tired. You’re not invisible just because the world doesn’t applaud what you do in silence.

Hold hands with someone who gets it. Have a rest when you can. Fight again tomorrow.