A week ago we received the awful news that Iggy's childhood tennis coach, Julio, had suddenly passed while teaching a tennis clinic in a sports club.
Apparently he was going about his usual coaching when a fulminant heart attack killed him on the spot.. he was 54 years old and full of energy and love for life.. Julio was loved by many and will be terribly missed by everyone that knew him.
Julio was very special to our family.. not only was he the first tennis coach Iggy ever had, but he had also been coaching our girls for almost 2 years; he had the kindest heart and the most beautiful soul...
But as much as this post is about Julio it is also about the mysterious ways God works and how He is present in everything we do, even when we don't suspect it.
See.. Julio died on Wednesday 06/28 and we had a trip planned for Friday 06/30 and because our flight was scheduled to leave in the early morning hours, we weren't going to make it to his funeral, which was scheduled for Friday from 9am to 6pm.
Iggy was really bummed out about not making it to the funeral because he felt like he needed that "closure" and wanted to say a proper goodbye and also give his support to Julio's family. He sent a message to Julio's son apologizing for not making it to the funeral but he still didn't feel right.
Friday came along and we headed to Ft. Lauderdale airport at 6am (via Uber) only to find out that our flight had been cancelled and the airline was doing everything possible to either fly us with another airline or just reschedule our flight for another day...all we had to do was wait.. who knew for how long...
As we waited at the airport, I thought of Julio's funeral and I felt that maybe this cancellation was happening for a reason... I asked Iggy to find out where the funeral was taking place and it turns out it was somewhere in Miami (for those of you who don't know, Ft. Lauderdale is about 35 min from Miami, so we were pretty far out) so attending the funeral still wasn't an option.
After waiting almost an hour at the airport, we were given the option of flying out of the Miami airport at 2:30pm; the airline offered to shuttle us down to the airport so we agreed and we arrived in Miami around 9:45am and quickly checked in for the flight..
With more than 3 hours to spare we decided to map the directions to the funeral home and it happened to be within 5 miles of the airport. We called an Uber and arrived at the funeral home just in time for the memorial; Iggy was able to say goodbye to Julio and spend some time with his family...he got the closure he desperately needed and everything just happened at the right time..
To think that so many things had to happen for Iggy to attend this funeral really says something about the way God works... our flight being cancelled, us being re-routed through Miami, the new flight being scheduled in the afternoon to give us plenty of time to spare, the funeral home located in Miami (weird considering Julio lived way north) and the time when everything was happening.. we were really meant to attend that funeral and I feel so blessed to have been able to say goodbye to Julio but especially for Ignacio mourning his loss the way he wanted.
We will forever be grateful for knowing Julio; for feeling his love and dedication and for understanding and valuing his legacy. We feel blessed that God granted us the opportunity to say goodbye to him and we will forever miss him.
Rest in Peace, Julio. We love you so much!
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