I don't much believe in coincidence. I sit squarely in the camp of most things happen for a reason.
Take last night for example. Two of the five of us were not home for dinner. So at 6:00 p.m. the other three of us debated whether to eat out or eat leftovers. Content with either option, we decided that leftovers were the course of least resistance. We stayed home.
Twenty minutes later – the phone rang. I picked up and heard the familiar voice of my sister-in-law, Marie. Knowing she, my brother and 2 of their kids had spent a bustling week running up and down the east coast for a conference, sight-seeing and visiting their daughter at West Point, I figured she was just checking in before heading home to Hawaii.
"Hey, how was your trip?" I asked.
"Oh it was good," she said, "until we just missed our flight out of Newburgh, NY."
Oops. Luckily, they were able to reschedule without a surcharge. Except the new flight wasn’t out of Newburgh. It was out of Hartford. At 6:30 the next morning! Genius that I am, I put 2 and 2 together.
"Great – Come on over!" So around 9:00 last night four road-weary travelers rolled in, visited for a couple hours, went to bed and then rolled out again at 5:30 a.m. I got up in the morning and they were gone. Almost as if they were never there.
But what if we’d decided to go out for dinner? We wouldn’t have seen them at all. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
2 comments:
I like this blog.
This kind of relates.
Yesterday was full of missteps and mishaps i sort of " randomly" found myself at Ocean State Job lot , just for a package of Parm. cheese. It was straight ahead as i walked in the door and down the front aisle at the very end.
I had no reason to turn the corner into the next aisle. I could have grabbed the cheese and turned around and back down to the registers.
For some unknown reason i rounded the end of the aisle and stood actually dumbfounded , mouth hanging open , arms at my side....staring at the back of an old friend.
I have been trying to find this person for the past 5 years. Trying the internet, the school system ( he is a teacher) and now since i drive through his town twice a week even hoping to bump into him at the one and only grocery store in his area.
There he was!
There was no good reason for me to be in Ocean State at that time. I never go there. I ended up there only after the a fore mentioned mishaps.
Things Do happen for a reason.
I hope it was a warm reunion. My brother once met a high school classmate in ... wait for it ... Bankok! When things like that happen, it feels like more than coincidence at work.
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