Early on a morning in December 2004, I was waiting for my ride to NYC. It was very cold. The weather forecast predicted snow for that morning, and it happened!

As I waited for my ride, the snow began to fall, and I sought refuge under a shop awning behind me. It had a huge storefront window that led me to see how busy they were. Someone inside was watching my move, and suddenly I heard a voice that said:

—I just brewed coffee, and I am baking soda bread. Come in, it is cold!

I turned my head, and there was the shop’s owner, Al Stewart, with the door open. I could sense the aroma of freshly baked bread that I still remember.

That was the very first time I saw him, from many more times I saw him as I went every morning to the same spot on Kearny Ave to wait for my ride.

His grandparents founded the shop in 1931, two years after emigrating from Scotland, and he was taking care of his family business. Al had served in the US Air Force and was stationed for four years in Germany and the UK during the 80s.

By force of custom to see Al, we became friends, and I introduced him to my friends, and he became one of the group. Years later, he offered me a position on his team at the Scottish Shop to manage the e-commerce website for the Stewart’s Scottish Market. He wanted to revamp the business with a brand-new site.

It was 2010 when I began working for him, with the challenge to learn quickly about the business audience: the Scottish American market. The small shop serving the Scottish people in New Jersey soon became known to all fifty states, and we started shipping orders from coast to coast.

Al kept his recipes loyal to the traditional Scottish food taste. I saw his love for his work; he used his skills and talents to make the best versions of Scottish meat pies and other food staples of Scotland’s cuisine.

His dedication, discipline, and care to make his Traditional Scottish food as in Scotland was the secret learned from his father that kept generations of customers loyal to the shop.

Al greatly influenced my life when he offered me the opportunity to develop my skills as a digital marketer in a new environment. There I had to leave my comfort zone to learn everything related to the Scottish in the more than ten years I worked for him.

I meditate on how the coincidence of being in the right place at the right time can change the course of an experience for anyone.

Al was a successful man who accomplished his purpose using his God-given talents for doing what he loved, and that let him leave an indelible mark on all who enjoyed his food.

But as life is just a passage of time on this earth, last week, friends and family had to say goodbye to Al Stewart, the Last Scottish of Kearny; Al seized eternity on a journey without return.