I was in the airport, waiting for my flight to get home.
All day, I had been craving a cheeseburger, so I stopped at the first place that had good cheeseburgers and fries.
Once I got my food, I realized there were not any empty tables, so I wandered around like we all do...
trying to find a someone at a table who looked like he or she would share a space.
I saw an older man in a business suit, just sitting quietly at a small table and approached him.
"Can I share a piece of your table?" He nodded, and I sat down and dove into my burger and fries.
I also took out my new e-reader to get caught up on today's news, and kept my head down so I wouldn't take over too much of the table.
After just a few seconds, the man said, "My son has a brain tumor.
" It took me a second or two to process that statement.
Then, I decided to close my e-reader and make eye contact with the man.
He was obviously on a business trip, and he smiled when my eyes met his.
All I could think to say, was "I'm so sorry.
" What do you say when someone begins a conversation like that? After about fifteen minutes of conversation, it turned out that he travels for business often, and that he and his wife have been caring for their adult son ever since he was diagnosed with a brain tumor nine years ago.
The son is now completely bed-ridden and has lost most of his cognitive function.
Whenever his dad passes his son's favorite hamburger place in his travels, he buys a case of the burgers to take home to his son.
Oh! That was the connection between my sitting at the table to eat my burger and the brain tumor.
Why do I tell you this story? Because in that fifteen minutes, I was reminded of some great lessons about listening, about the power of listening to someone who needs us to listen in that moment.
Can I share them with you?

• You never know when you will meet someone who has something to say, something that you should listen to.
  Be open to those moments (even in a busy, anonymous airport).
  
• You learn such amazing lessons when you listen.
  As a result of that story, I reflected all the way home about my great family and my gratitude for their health.
  
• Sometimes, people just need you to listen without an agenda.
  Since we were strangers, that was easy for me...
  but it isn't always easy to listen without my own agenda.
  Can we listen just to listen, without needing to insert our own story or our own opinions?
• Asking questions to extend the conversation can lead to exceptional new ideas and understanding.
  Probably because I was eating, I simply asked a question periodically as this man spilled out his story.
  "When did this happen?" got me to the timeline of his son's illness.
  "How often do you travel?" led him to explain about his career field, the decisions he had made in order to compensate for his son's condition, and gave me a sense of his commitment to family.
  Without those questions, he might not have continued with his story, and I might not have learned a lesson from his experiences.
  

It seems to me that we spend a lot of time thinking about what we are going to say, and inserting our own experiences into our conversations.
When was the last time you simply listened to someone who needed to talk, without any agenda and with an open mind? Try it! You will find your own version of a lesson or an opportunity to learn something new.
Do you have a story like "my son has a brain tumor" story? Please share it with us.