We were unloading the car after a weekend away on a cold Sunday afternoon in February 2023 when a young man came walking up our driveway. He said he’d noticed our neighbour’s year-round Pride flag and thought this neighbourhood might have nice people in it. He wasn’t wrong.

Within the span of a few minutes, we learned that he was 22, that he loved fashion and had recently got his first winter coat, and that he’d come to Canada from India less than a month before as an international student. He was alone in the world: he didn’t know a soul here. He had stepped on a plane for the first time only weeks before — with his mother’s life savings and a dream. It was the first time he’d been away from home and he missed his mother terribly.

He wondered if he could shovel our driveway for some spending money. And that’s how it began. With his own mother nearly 7,000 miles away, the Universe somehow decided to entrust Yash to us. We became his Canadian moms.

Over these last many months, we’ve watched as Yash made new friends, found part-time work and saved his money, and worked hard to graduate college. Grateful to be living a dream he’s had since he was a child, he has flourished here.

Occasionally, he’d take the bus to our house to drop off home-cooked Indian food, or we’d drive over to his place to pick up whatever he’d made. One afternoon, he went shopping with Charlene and her mom for ingredients and came back to our house to cook an authentic Indian meal. He came by at Christmas. We met him here and there for coffees — to catch up on his life — at a Williams Cafe near his place in Waterloo. He met some of our family.

But most of all, we were honoured that he chose us to be his family.

And last night, we said good-bye to him.

Tomorrow morning, he’ll fly to Halifax to start the next chapter of his life. It’ll be his second time on a plane. And it’ll be the first time he’ll get to touch the ocean. His excitement about that is the most heart-warming thing. Yash, in general, is the most heart-warming thing, to be honest.

And of all the driveways in all the world — in all of the eons of time — that he could have showed up in, he showed up that Sunday afternoon in ours. We all felt from the start that ours was a divine connection and we talked about that with him often. I’m not a religious person but sometimes when Yash left our house, I’d say to Charlene that it felt like Jesus was just in our living room.

It was because he’s just such a beautiful reminder of goodness in the world — and that we all carry each other. We once helped to carry him while he learned to navigate a new city and create a new life. And he unknowingly carried us, pushing us to remember that the long arc of this life bends towards goodness if you let it — and if you look for it. In a world that sometimes seems to have forgotten that no matter what our differences are, or how great they may be, he reminded us that our hearts — and our longings — are not so different.

While I cannot give you proof, just like I can’t show you the invisible power that is hope or love — I watched Yash’s wide-eyed innocence and his unquestioning belief in the goodness of people and I just feel that it’s true — that you will see in the world what it is that you carry in your heart.

He reminded us that there are good people out there. And they are looking for you. He reminded us that we are all mirrors for one another, with the potential to reflect our own love and goodness back to others, and to ourselves. His life says that you attract what you are. And sometimes you attract people who need what you are.

Yash has been a quiet reminder that all of the hate in the world — and there is plenty of it these days — is sold to us. But that all the love in the world is still free — and there is plenty of that too. Right now, there are more reasons than ever to treat each other with great tenderness. One of them is the sheer miracle that we’re all here together in this time.

And the number of hours we have together is not actually so large. So please linger near the door talking about your fashion sense and your mother and your dreams instead of leaving. Please forget your scarf — or your Tupperware — in our lives and come back for it later.

Please… have the best life.