Coincidence…or Something Else?

Occasionally in life certain series of events occur that could be sheer coincidence or could be affirmation that something more powerful than us causes things to happen.

I have had two such occurrences in recent years.

Exhibit A:

One of my step-sons who had four children was killed in a car accident in 2008. His wife, the mother of the children, was killed in an accident in 2013.  At that time the sons were 13, 17, 21 and 25. The oldest of the boys took in his two youngest brothers. The second son was in college.

The oldest son a few years earlier had decide to take some time off  “to find himself”.  He left his job as a welder and headed up the west coast, travelling and working when he needed to fund himself,  then moving on when the spirit moved him.  He was a wanderer, but at the end of 2012 he decided to return to his previous locale, was hired back at his previous job, and picked up the relationship with his previous girlfriend. They were in the process of moving into their own place when he got the phone call that his mother had been killed in the car accident.

For him it was an automatic decision that his two youngest brothers would live with him.  We have discussed many times what was it that made him come home precisely when he did?  Why was it at that exact time he had determined that he had found himself and was ready to settle down?  If he had not come back, his brothers no doubt would have been taken care of by other family members, but this was clearly an instance of things having worked out as they were meant to, and the brothers are together.

Exhibit B:

I had two college roommates in the early ’70’s with whom I was extremely close. We each got our degrees and moved off to follow our own careers and lives.  By the end of the 1970’s I had lost touch with them completely.  As I got older, I tried to re-establish connections without success.

Fast forward to January 2014.  My brother-in-law in Wisconsin passed away.  I was making a quick trip to Wisconsin, flying into Madison, to attend his funeral.  My flight from Albuquerque directed me through Dallas.

While sitting at our gate in Dallas,  I saw someone who looked like my college roommate Judy (with 30 years added on).  I was not certain it was her. However, when our flight was called and she stood up and started walking I knew it was her.  Since she was already boarding I decided that I would try to connect with her when we got to Madison. However when I found my seat I was amazed that I was seated right next to her. We quickly established who we were, and then had to explain to other passengers what prompted the excited screaming and hugging. Our other roommate was meeting her at the airport in Madison so I reunited with her as well. Both of them had been trying to find me over the last couple of years.

The series of events that brought us together was quite remarkable.  We both lost family members at the same time. Judy lives in Seattle and I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I frequently fly through Dallas, but in many previous trips to Wisconsin from Seattle over a 30 year period of time, Judy had never before been routed through Dallas.  She needed to go to Milwaukee for the funeral and ordinarily she would have flown into Milwaukee, but she had decided to use frequent flyer miles from Alaskan Airlines which caused her itinerary to take her through Dallas and into Madison which is also where I was going. In addition, her son and her sister were flying from Seattle to Milwaukee for the funeral, and logistics would have made it much easier for her to take the same flights that they had, but she chose to use her frequent flyer miles instead.  Not only were we on the same flight but we were seated right next to each other.

Conclusion:

Non-believers are likely to say that these are just sheer coincidences.  I, however, do not believe in coincidences.

Have you had experiences where things fell together in exactly the right way?  Was it mere coincidence?

Affirmations of my faith, another thread of my life.