He Came To Us

I didn’t expect to feel this shaken by the Pope’s passing.

Maybe it’s because it happened on Easter Monday, when the Church proclaims life after death, light after darkness.

Or maybe because this wasn’t just a Pope.

This was our Pope — the one we had once planned to meet.

As newlyweds, my husband and I dreamed of going to the Vatican for the Pope’s blessing. But just a month later, I was pregnant — and it was a difficult pregnancy. Travel was out of the question. The dream was quietly tucked away.

I hoped to bring my parents and mother-in-law too. But life had its limits — my parents busy with work here in the UAE, my mother-in-law far away in the Philippines. The timing never aligned.

Then God did something none of us expected.

The Pope came to us.

To Abu Dhabi.

To the very country I call home.

Miraculously, it was exactly while my mother-in-law was visiting — helping with the baby, sharing in that beautiful, chaotic season. And by another miracle, we got tickets.

My husband. My parents. My mother-in-law. Our darling firstborn — just a little over a year old. And me.

We were all there.

Three generations together in the desert sun, surrounded by thousands, longing for a glimpse of something holy.

And we received it.

Not just in seeing him, but in the peace that fell over the crowd.

Not from a man in white robes, but from the Spirit who moved through him.

A peace so deep, it wrapped around us like sunlight.

A knowing: we were seen. We were held.

It didn’t matter that we weren’t in Rome.

Because holiness had come to meet us where we were.

We didn’t miss the blessing.

We lived it.

Received it — as a family.

Not planned. But pure grace.

And now, as I mourn the Pope’s passing, I return to that day —

to the photograph, the memory, the miracle we didn’t even know to pray for.

Thank you, Pope Francis.

You were the shepherd who came to find even the sheep in the desert.

You came to us.

And even for those who didn’t believe in blessings…

you became one.