synchronicity

If only we could trust the unseen, unheard guidance that we have available in our lives ..

My friend’s daughter and her boyfriend were looking for a used washer and dryer for their new digs. Mom was looking through the Pennysaver ads and spotted an estate sale out in the country so they all piled into her car and headed out. Not really knowing where they were going, they meandered along countryside concession roads, finally arriving at the large farmhouse with about a six car garage sitting in the wide open spaces.

Always up for an adventure they enthusiastically climbed out of the car and rushed into the garage. To quote my friend, “there was a ton of stuff set out in sections, and in the middle of the garage were boxes stacked with frames”. She and her daughter were browsing through things when they heard the boyfriend say several times…”You guys…hey you guys… look at this”. They looked up. In his hands was an old ratty frame with a picture of my friend and her husband on their wedding day, her in the long flowing white gown and him in his tux and long hair style. She shook her head doing triple takes just to take this in and to realize it was them. They felt in shock. They couldn’t believe it. They just started laughing. The timing of this was perfect/coincidental as they were soon to celebrate their 25th anniversary the following month.

There was such a mess of things in this large garage space – if someone was deliberately looking for something they likely would never have been able to find it. Yet here they found a twenty-five year old wedding photo among a pile of frames.  Their wedding photo. They got the giggles. The women running the sale, daughters of the woman who had passed away heard the laughter and raised voices of the excited conversation and asked “what’s so funny”. When they heard the information about their find, the sellers offered the picture as a gift. “Just take it” they said.

While rummaging through the boxes of about forty frames, trying to find some good ones, there were no other pictures attached to the frames. Except for their framed photo, everything else was an empty frame. My friend says “how weird is that?”

Obviously they were curious about how their wedding photo got to this country garage. The women running the sale shared the story. The photographers worked as couple…and split up…he took the business and she took all the fixtures. She moved out to the county and had recently passed away. That’s why there was an estate sale.

This kind of story tickles me – and oddly enough, not so much because of the surprise of it, but because I know these things happen.  And it kind of makes me curious if other people have similar synchronistic yard sale/flea market stories.

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Sometimes the distance from Point A to Point B can be a straight line.  Other times the journey leaves a meandering trail before connecting with the Point B destination.  Such is the case in point.

While visiting my friend Betty yesterday, as she went off to have her shower she invited me to scour through some old photos her daughter had given her the previous day.  I know some of her family members and I knew her husband who passed away a few years ago so I spent some enjoyable time looking at familiar faces at varying stages of aging.

When she emerged fresh from the shower and ready to go to lunch she handed me a 1956 Crusader year book.  The Crusader is the team logo for Windsor’s Assumption High School.  She offered it to me and suggested I keep it.  Silently scratching my head with thought, having absolutely no idea what I might do with it, I accepted it anyway.

I asked Betty’s how she came by this yearbook and she relayed it to me.  A few years ago, as her daughter was closing her store for the day, a gentleman came in with the book and said that she (Nancy) should have it as it would mean something.   The yearbook was from 1956. Nancy was born in 61. The only thing she could think of was that maybe her dad had placed an ad in it. Nancy just had it on a shelf in her home and recently thought her mother (Betty) would like it or know something about it. Nancy has no idea why this total stranger walked into her store and gave it to her saying it would mean something to her.

Listening to the story of this book’s journey into Betty’s hands I lifted the first few pages and quickly recognized a face.  This fellow had been a lifeguard at Ford City Bathing Beach when I was in my early teens.  He was a twin.  I had a crush on his younger brother.  Four of my five sons went to Assumption High School and I pondered the possible connection of them or some of their teachers to this year book.

Flipping a few more pages I started to do a bit of math.  My former husband, the father of my sons, was born in 1939 and he went to Assumption High School.  My heart started to skip as I pondered the possibility that this book might be meant for him.  And wouldn’t you just know it – thanks to each grade’s student individual photos being listed alphabetically, within just a few seconds my unspoken question was answered.  The book is for him.

When I shared this revelation with Betty she was on the verge of getting emotional on me – joy at finding the book a home, and knowing that we all had a mysterious and synchronistic hand in it.

It was a winding, crooked path from Point A to Point B; the man who gave the book to my friend’s daughter Nancy, Nancy who gave it to Betty, Betty who gave it to me… all not knowing where it would end up or why they had it, and me who will give it to Gene, where it is meant to be.

As Meryl Streep’s right-hand man (in the movie ‘Out of Africa’) said when they removed a rock dam from a downhill moving stream, “now the river can go back to Mombasa”.

And so this book will be delivered to Gene. He is Point B.

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