"There's something familiar about that belly."
It's a strange sentence to hear in your own head. Especially when you're walking along a seawall in San Diego, searching for an uncle you haven't seen in decades.
But Susanne Scott heard it anyway. Clear as a bell. And she followed it.
The man with the familiar belly was leaning back on the seawall. When he turned his head, Susanne recognized his ice-blue eyes from her earliest memory of being loved: sitting next to him as a child while he strummed his guitar and looked at her like she mattered.
"Larry?" she said.
"Maybe," he answered.
She took off her sunglasses. "I'm your niece. Susanne."
He stared. Then his face opened.
"Praise Jesus," he said. "I have people.”
Two years before that, an elder at Larry’s church had asked: If God could do anything for you, what would it be?
Larry’s response: I'd like to reconnect with my family.
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It was 2021. Michigan was still locked down, and Susanne and her husband Paul needed to feel normal again. So they booked a trip to San Diego.
Then Paul asked a question that changed everything: "Doesn't your uncle Larry live in San Diego?"
Uncle Larry. The one she hadn't seen since 1993. The one who’d had a full scholarship to MIT. The one who flatlined five times after a car accident at 19 cost him his math genius. The one who lived in a van, played guitar on Ocean Beach in San Diego, and prayed for strangers.
Susanne wasn’t even sure if he was alive.
They set aside two days to search. Knocked on doors using an old address. Left notes. Nothing. On their last day, they drove to the beach, the place Larry used to call paradise.
That’s where she found him, an hour before the rental car was due back. When she flew home, she cried the whole way.
But Paul found a surfcam that showed the seawall, and Larry — in a different colored shirt. "That's a good sign," Susanne said.
Larry’s church family of 28 years helped Susanne get him new prescription glasses and a flip phone; Larry would call Susanne and the rest of his family every Sunday after church. The following year, Susanne flew back and worked on song lyrics with her uncle, Susanne typing while Larry dictated. His lyrics were stunning. The genius hadn't disappeared; it had just transmuted.
One month later, Larry passed out in the hallway of his apartment. He was rushed into surgery. He never came out.
"God used me as an instrument to reconnect with him before He took him," Susanne says now.
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On that same San Diego trip where she found Larry, Susanne also re-found herself.
She and Paul visited a Korean spa: Infrared sauna, cold plunge, massage, meditation rooms. They left feeling amazing: skin glowing, minds clear, bodies energized.
"I was like, what is this all about?" Susanne says. "What's the science behind sauna and cold plunge?"
Back home, there was nowhere she could go to get all of that in one place. So she started researching. Built a business plan. Studied the industry. Got graph paper out and calculated square footage. "I didn't know why I was doing this," she says. "But I was."
Then, in March of 2024, Susanne's ex-husband died. Their son Alex was listed on most of his accounts. But after 20 years of divorce, Susanne was surprised to find that she was too.
An inheritance. As they were settling the estate, Susanne had been telling Alex: Be the employer, not the employee.
Alex said: "Let's do your plan."
Firefly Spa, offering contrast therapy, opened in March 2025 in Royal Oak. Upstairs, Some Peace & Quiet followed in October.
Walk into Firefly Spa on any given day and you'll hear no spa music. The sounds are themed daily: Meditation Monday. Back to Nature Tuesday (thunderstorms, lions, monkeys). Country Western Wednesday. Throwback Hits Thursday. Dance Party Friday. Smooth Jazz Saturday (for the hungover). Solo Artists Sunday.
There's no reservation required. The large infrared sauna fits up to ten people. There are also two cold plunge tubs (one at 55 degrees, one at 48), and complimentary electrolytes, mini Clif bars, and herbal tea in the lounge.
The first time someone gets in the 48-degree tub, Susanne tells them: "The first thirty seconds are the worst. Every instinct says get out. But if you stay — if you move your arms, flip over, put your face in — something happens.”
That something is thermogenesis. Your vagus nerve fires. Dopamine floods your system. Inflammation drops. You're producing endorphins, epinephrine, norepinephrine. Your body starts flushing out old white blood cells, while in the sauna you’re growing new ones. You’re also producing nitric oxide, which relaxes your blood vessels, and increasing your metabolism. You’re essentially detoxing, reducing stress, and recharging at the cellular level. And for the next four hours, you're riding a neurotransmitter high.
"People walk out with what we call the dopey dopamine smile," Susanne says. "You're energized but calm at the same time. It's such a wonderful feeling."
One client came in facing potential shoulder surgery. His injury healed; he didn't need the surgery. But he kept coming back. He also told Susanne he'd been in a down place, but that was in the past now: Firefly helped him mentally as well as physically. "He's in here almost every day,” Susanne says.
There's a runner who had hip pain; that’s now gone. There’s a woman whose brain fog lifts after every session.
"People come in and they can't look you in the eye," Susanne says. "And then they leave and they're making eye contact. They're smiling."
Some Peace & Quiet is, as the name implies, quieter. Three massage therapists, with complimentary hot stones and essential oil available upon request. A holistic room with sound bathing equipment. Reiki. LED light therapy. And if you book a massage, you get half off a daily drop-in at Firefly.
"I don't want to nickel-and-dime people," Susanne says. "I want them to heal."
Susanne recalls a spiritual reading she got once in Sedona that said, You’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
"I kind of lost who I was for a number of years," she says. "Baseball mom. Basketball mom. Field trip mom. I lost Susanne.”
Now she knows what her purpose is: helping people come back to themselves.
That's what Firefly Spa and Some Peace & Quiet are really about. When you go into discomfort — whether it's 48-degree water or an against-the-odds search for a relative who once made you feel loved — something shifts. And you’re more ‘you.’
“You ignite the fire within," Susanne says. "So you can burn brightly in this world.”
Firefly Spa and Some Peace & Quiet are on 14 Mile in Royal Oak. First visit to Firefly Spa is free. Learn more at fireflyspa.ne