Change The Tire on Route 66, again! I was somewhere between mile markers, that long stretch of nowhere where the horizon starts to feel like it’s running away from you. The kind of road where you learn quick that cell service is more suggestion than promise. I’d been down this stretch before, once when I met an old man and his dog waiting in the dust for someone to notice. This time, it was different.
Up ahead, a car sat on the shoulder with a tire blown to ribbons. Hazard lights clicked like a metronome in the silence. A young couple stood beside it, faces caught somewhere between frustration and helplessness. No jack. No cell signal. Just the desert heat and a problem bigger than their toolbox.
I pulled over, gravel crunching under my tires, and asked if they needed a hand. Their relief was almost visible. “We’ve got a spare,” the dad said, “but nothing to lift the car.” I told him not to worry. I had both a jack and a willingness to stop. Two things that can turn despair into hope in a hurry.
As we dug into the work, I noticed their daughter, maybe four years old, hiding shyly behind her mom’s leg. She looked like she too wanted to change the tire with us. She had this cutest quirky smile, half mischief, half curiosity and every time I glanced her way, she ducked like we were playing peek-a-boo. A living reminder that even in stressful moments, kids find ways to turn it into a game.
Her dad and I got to talking while loosening stubborn lug nuts. I told him about my grandkids up in Utah, and how much I miss them. I didn’t mean to share, but sometimes stories spill out easier when your hands are busy. I mentioned they call me Papa, a title I cherish. He nodded and said his Father passed and would have been Pawpaw, just like his Grandfather and shared how much he missed them both. And just like that, for a few minutes, it felt less like fixing a tire and more like swapping stories across a kitchen table.
By the time the spare was on and the tools packed back in my truck, the little girl had inched closer. She gave me that same mischievous smile, then darted forward and wrapped her arms around my leg in a hug that nearly stopped me cold. “Can I call you Papa?” she asked, looking up with eyes that had no agenda, just pure childlike honesty.
I swallowed hard and told her, “I would be honored.”
Her parents smiled, maybe a little embarrassed, but I wasn’t. For a brief moment on the shoulder of a forgotten stretch of highway, I wasn’t a stranger. I was somebody’s Papa. Somebody who showed up when help seemed a long way off.
They drove away with a safe tire and I drove away with something I didn’t expect, a reminder that love sneaks in at the oddest places. Sometimes it’s through the hands of a man turning a jack handle. Sometimes it’s through the voice of a little girl who just wanted someone to belong to for a moment.
✨ A Change the tire Roadside Reflection:
Life doesn’t always hand us burning bushes or neon signs. More often, it hands us a flat tire, a lonely stretch of road, and the chance to stop. To change the tire. To be the one who notices. To turn inconvenience into grace. The truth is, the small things, a cup of coffee, a pot of chili, a spare tire in the desert. These are the miracles we get to hand out. And sometimes, in the giving, we realize we were the ones being saved too.
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