Logan

I’ve gotten ‘lucky’ a lot in my life. I must have done a thing or two right because I have ALWAYS had the absolute best people around me.

I want to tell you a story about Logan. Logan an I went to the same Church/Christian School and he was a friend of my cousins(who were a couple of years older than I). We’d talk over social media and keep in touch over the years through Instagram, Twitter, etc.

One day I’m on Snapchat and I am talking to someone who knows me. I talk to this person often but honestly I don’t know who it is because I don’t recognize their username. But through our conversations, I think I know who it is. This sounds sketch of me, I know. But this is normal behavior because I know that I have a lot of people who know myself, my family or support me from a far and til this day I still make time to write to most people who write to me.

This person tells me that they went over their budget for their season and had money left over that they want to donate to me. I kind of brushed it off because again, I don’t recognize the username and I don’t even know how to accept something like that anyways. We talk about meeting up but they’re not available to because they’ll be traveling and I just sweep in under the rug.

About a month later I get another message asking to meet up. I’m a believer that God knows all things and at the time, I was in a rough place! So who was I to turn down a blessing? I asked Renato to come with me. We had just started hanging out a week or two before this and he agreed. I knew that I knew this person and I had an idea of who it was but I still wasn’t sure.

I get a seat outside of Whole Foods and Renato goes inside to make a plate. I can see him watching me from the inside to make sure that I know who it is. I hear my name and I turn around an I’m so relieved to see it’s Logan(it is who I thought it was). I’ve never told him this story so I’m sorry Logan, but your username wasn’t the same as your others and you didn’t have a photo either. I don’t even remember if you could have one back then. I give him a big hug and we sit down to talk. He hands me an envelope and I stick it in my back pocket. We must have talked for almost two hours. Renato joined us and we talked about our dreams, his track schedule, season and everything in between. Finally we get up to go so I walk to my trunk to give him a fight shirt. It was the only thing he wanted in return. We say our goodbyes and I go inside to make some food because at this point I’m starving.

As I’m making my food I feel the envelope in my back pocket sticking out. Up until that point I had completely forgot about the money. I go to adjust it but realize the envelope is thick. So I pull it out and open it up. I look inside and there is a bunch of one hundred dollar bills looking at me. My mouth drops. I walk over to Renato and I show it to him and all he can say is, “what the hell raquel? He gave that to you?”

When he told me how much money he had left from his budget I thought two things: he is donating some of it to me OR he is donating all of the money to me but he accidentally put an extra 0. When we get to the table I open the envelope under it and I pull the money out. I start counting and there are twenty five one hundred dollar bills. My jaw drops and I instantly feel stupid for so casually taking this money from him.

If you remember what I said in the beginning, we grew up in the same church. So being a blessing to others is something that was preached to us. But this was a gift I was not expecting. I think I immediately messaged him to ask if it was a mistake but it was not. He said he wanted to help someone and the only thing he wanted me to do is to do it someday too.

Back then I could make $500 last three months. So you can imagine $2500 was a lot of money to just give to me. I put it away in my closet and only used it to compete. That season was the first that I got to travel to a bunch of different opens. I did local ones, went to New York, Chicago, Dallas, California a couple of times amongst other places. It was an eye opener for me and I feel like my Jiujitsu grew tremendously that season.

Logan’s kindness made a lasting impression on me. As soon as I was able to help others, I did. At first it was small things like groceries and a place to stay and as of late I’ve been blessed to be a blessing on an even larger scale. Life comes full circle and I’m so glad that I’m in the place I am today that I can do the same thing that was done for me, for others.

Logan, if you ever read this.. thank you. You honestly don’t know how much that act of kindness changed my life in more ways than one. I hope that those I’m a blessing to will be blessings to others and the ripple effect keeps making waves for years to come…