There’s a line in the critically acclaimed classic film Crocodile Dundee in which the main character responds to a threat by declaring, “That’s not a knife. THIS is a knife,” then unsheathes a weapon that causes everyone around him to stand down in awe. The clip was played on the TV at my gym over the weekend and when I saw it, I knew: that’s what grace has been doing for us since before we arrived here in Sydney, at every turn. It’s been taking my fears–fears that were converted to prayers but keep wanting to switch back–and making each of them stand down, one after the other. Because grace, if you didn’t know, speaks softly but carries a big knife.

See also–babysitters.

Grace, much like soylent green, has been turning up as people, popping up all over the place. Some of them we knew before; some we are just laying eyes on. It turns out they’re laying eyes on us too, really seeing us, and it’s funny, this post I was reminded of recently when it popped up on my newsfeed–how it brings back in a rush of recognition my lifelong desire to remain invisible, under the radar, and how life has been found in the moments of being seen. And how many of them would never had occurred were it not for all the things we never would have chosen.

A couple of weeks ago, we welcomed our first houseguest: The Kid’s therapist from back home. We were two weeks into this move, newcomers ourselves, and when her taxi pulled to a stop in front of our house and I beheld TK’s grin at this piece of home, I was reminded of the early days with her, nearly two years ago, when almost every time she left our house I would doubt and wonder and consider calling for a replacement because I did NOT feel like we were connecting. But she and TK were. And I considered that the fact she had started out–with her matter-of-factness and directness and demands–on my bad side might not be truly fair since that side actually covers more than fifty percent of me; it’s almost the whole thing–my unspoken policy seems to be that all new people are guilty until proven innocent. So I waited, and watched, and there were many standoffs and confrontations (in my head) and now, she was standing in our new driveway ten thousand miles away from the old one, and TK looked happier than he had since we arrived. For the next week, she became part of our family, getting TK (and me) back on track and reminding me of what he is capable of–and what I am, too. When she left after days of deep conversations and more of a relationship than I ever would have imagined possible two years ago, I was urging her to come back soon and stifling tears.

This is how grace appears: not in the people we expected or the things we asked for. It’s so sneaky like that.

It shows up in the lady at the cosmetics store, who introduced me to her coworker who had lived in Atlanta, and who seemed to find me hilarious and asked me to come back soon, even if it was “just for a chat.” I am DELIGHTFUL in Australia, I thought, emerging into the furnace of heat outside with a bounce in my step just as an elderly woman yelled at me for stepping in front of her. It shows up in the doctor whose office we called for a same-day appointment to sort out the boys’ immunizations/immunisations, and when he asked if we needed anything else I told him I’d be back to get a prescription for myself filled–a little drug called Lexapro that has been talking me off ledges recently–and he pulled out his pad. “And is that for…depression?” he gently prodded. “Postnatal depression?” I nodded at the latter even though it’s two years out, because all of life for me is now postnatal (HELLO PTSD AFTER HAVING YOUR INSIDES AND IDENTITY REARRANGED), and he handed me the slip of paper and looked at me seriously as he asked it: “How are you doing?” I wanted to cry but feared it would not match my sincere answer, that some of this has been hard but I’m actually doing pretty well, but the question–it made me feel seen. It made me realize I am being seen, grace showing up in kind queries and in the moment the other morning when the sidewalk ended without warning due to construction and I was left with two boys in a stroller in the scalding heat, profanities lacing each labored breath, and no fewer than four people stopped and offered help, their arms and mine lifting my children across the ripped concrete and sand and onto solid ground again.

Then I went to the gym and a bird, for no apparent reason, flew right through the room and over my head and scared the shit out of me. But I don’t have the metaphor for that one yet, so stay tuned.

Grace shows up fully armed in the removed-by-multiple-degrees-but-still-feel-like-relatives-friends who showed up on Australia Day and met us in the harbo(u)r, and since I’ve only met them twice and briefly, I worried I wouldn’t recognize them or they, us. But through the crowd I saw their faces and knew, and so did they–because you always see the people you know. We spent the next few hours talking and laughing and watching boats and hearing the national anthem and standing together for it along with everyone around us, a part of something bigger than ourselves, always. A piece of home here.

It’s uncanny–but not really, is it?–that the woman I barely met on the plane is now my son’s emergency contact and my drinking/gym/life buddy; that after meeting with him for just a few minutes, TK’s new teacher told me, “He’s just so kind, isn’t he?” and I breathed again, knowing she can see him; that one of my dearest back home said it too–how a debacle at a restaurant recently brought out the people Mr. Rogers liked to call “helpers,” who followed her to the bathroom and asked her the same thing asked of me: “How are you doing?” How another of my dearest back home wrote about it, her son who faces so many of the same challenges as TK does revealing the kindness of strangers too. They’ve been called guardian angels by some, but I don’t know; I like to think of them as grace putting on skin and packing heat.

This American Life did an episode last week on what happens when one person spots something no one else can see; Modern Love blew me away with a father’s description of his life with his son on the spectrum. And I write about it here because I have to–this documentation of all that grace has let me in on, all that it allows me to see that I would have missed otherwise: TK and his wonky and beautiful way of looking at the world; divine faithfulness stretching across thousands of miles; forgiveness being the glue that holds marriage and family and life together in the midst of failure and depression and anxiety and general wretched brokenness that keeps turning into hope. I can’t not tell you about it, because you’re my people too, and if you are…then that means you can see it too now, right?