I’m sitting in a little coffee shop in Las Vegas this morning.
It’s not on the strip. I hate those flashy places on the strip. It’s just a quiet, low-key hotel I’ve been coming to for years whenever I drive down from Salt Lake City to meet up with a friend.
And there’s a waiter here named Hector.
Even though I’ve seen him a million times, I didn’t know his name until today.
For some reason, I asked him his name this morning. I’m not even sure why. I just did.
I was curious so I asked him how long he has been working here?
He smiled.
“Twenty years.”
Twenty years. Wow I thought!
Now English is clearly not Hector’s first language. He speaks with a Spanish accent, and if I had to guess, I would say he probably came here from Mexico. Maybe I’m wrong. But standing there talking to him, I found myself thinking about that too.
Then I went deep in thought. What was his life like before this restaurant? What did it take to come here, build a life, find a job and then keep that job for twenty years?
Then he told me that in his twenty years here he has watched three generations of the family that owns this restaurant come through this place.
Three generations.
All of a sudden Hector wasn’t just the guy bringing me breakfast anymore.
He was a man who has spent twenty years of his life serving customers in this little coffee shop I would call it.
Twenty years of people coming through those doors, eating, paying their check, leaving a tip and disappearing back into their own lives, whatever those lives look like.
I’m guessing he has served some famous people. And some homeless people as well.
I’m also guessing most of them probably never even looked up at him besides ordering. Most probably never learned his name. To them, he was just the waiter.
But for some reason, I kept asking questions.
I asked him how old he was.
Forty-eight.
Which means Hector started working here when he was still in his twenties.
Think about that.
Somewhere along the way, while the rest of us were living our lives, changing jobs, moving to different cities, raising children, losing people we loved, getting older, Hector kept showing up.
His alarm goes off every morning. He gets up. Showers. Maybe makes breakfast for his kids. Walks them to the bus stop. Kisses them goodbye. He gets in his car and fights the crazy Las Vegas traffic.
And then he walks through these doors and starts taking care of people.
Coffee. Breakfast. Refills. Checks. Another table. Another morning.
And most of the people he serves probably know nothing about Hector, nor do they care. They don’t know that this restaurant has been part of nearly half his adult life.
They just know they need more coffee.
But watching Hector this morning, I could tell something else.
There is pride in the way he does his job. There is warmth in him. And when he talked about those twenty years, his face lit up in a way that told me this place means something to him.
Maybe more than most of us ever stop long enough to notice.
And as we talked, something happened that I don’t think I’ll forget. His face lit up even more. Not because I gave him a nice tip. Not because I did anything remarkable.
I just asked about him. I wanted to know his story.
And standing there this morning, I suddenly wondered how many people like Hector are all around us every single day.
The person pouring our coffee. The woman cleaning the hotel room. The man stocking the shelves. The person driving the bus.
People we pass without thinking because somehow they have become part of the scenery.
But nobody is scenery.
Every one of them has a story.
Hector has been alive for 48 years. He has loved people. He has probably worried about people. He has had good days and terrible ones. He has laughed. He has been exhausted. He has gone home at the end of thousands of shifts with a life waiting for him that I know absolutely nothing about.
And yet for years, to me, he was simply the nice waiter at the coffee shop.
Until today. Today I truly saw Hector. And maybe that’s one of the simplest gifts we can give another human being.
Just a moment that says:
I see you. You’re not invisible. Your life matters too.
Twenty years from now, I probably won’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
But I know I’m going to remember Hector.
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