A story about an inexplicable coincidence

 

A story about an inexplicable coincidence

The world is so big and so small at the same time. Once in a while I am reminded of how connected we all are. Things happen that I refer to as synchronicity, although that is probably not the exact term. I have many tales that are hard to wrap my brain around, but the one I am going to share is probably the strangest. This story does have an element of sadness amid the serendipity. Back in 2008 my immediate family of four took a celebratory cruise. That summer, Lauren was turning 21, Alana was turning 18, Sandy was turning 50 and we were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. So many milestones!  We generally made a point of having most of our vacations involve seeing grandparents, so we picked a ship that left from south Florida so that we could spend some time visiting Sandy's parents, Nanya and Poppa, before and after the cruise. We were keeping a close and concerned watch on the weather because that August there were several hurricanes swirling around the Atlantic. We weren’t sure if we would be impacted up until the last moment. Fortunately we were able to navigate around the storms, and there was no change in the itinerary necessary, but we have never been more glued to the weather channel. All in all it turned out to be a wonderful vacation. Lauren was already in college and Alana would be heading off that fall, so having all of us together was something I cherished. For our final port of call the family decided to do one of the more adventurous excursions. We were going to go ziplining through the rain forest and then cave tubing. That was a fairly generous ‘we’. Truth be told, I needed a bit of convincing, but ultimately opted in. I was still nervous when we arrived at the Jaguar Paw Park in Belize. There was an unexpected delay and we stood in line and waited to be outfitted with gear before heading up to the zipline….and waited and waited. Waiting in line wasn’t doing anything for my nerves. The reason suddenly became horribly apparent. A woman was being carried past us on a stretcher. She was pale and completely unresponsive. Unconscious? Dead? We had no idea. The line started moving again but now I had to work harder to knock out the anxiety that was brewing.. What had happened to that woman? In any case I got all strapped in, took some deep breaths and successfully ziplined from canopy to canopy over the rain forest. Cave tubing was also fun..and happily no bodies being escorted off. The dim little headlamp I was wearing was not bright enough for me to see the bats on the ceiling and some spiders in the water that I learned about later. Ignorance is bliss. When we got back to the ship later that day there was some buzz. A Carnival cruise ship was docked next to ours in the harbor. One of their passengers had died during one of the excursions. That must have been the person who we saw. What a sad thing. She didn’t look very old. There I was feeling so lucky to be enjoying life and my family. It was a stark reminder to count my blessings. I confess it took awhile to put her out of my mind. A week or so later, the vacation was over and I returned to work. Part of my job at Noe Valley Pediatrics involved interfacing with the pharmaceutical and vaccine reps who would come into the office. I had a warm relationship with some of them and we would do some social catching up during their visits. One such rep came in monthly to check our vaccine inventory and help me calculate the vaccine needs for the next month and place the order. I had known him for several years. This fellow sat in my office and we did some chatting. “Hey Judy, How was your cruise? I was thinking about you because of all the hurricanes that were in the news, were you impacted?” “No, we got lucky” “What places did you visit?” “We went to Key West, Cozumel and Belize” “Oh, Belize….I am actually on my way to a funeral for someone who just died there. She was also on a cruise” Um, WHAT???? We did some further chatting and confirmed that it had to be the person that had been carried past me. The timing matched exactly. It turned out that she was a pediatric advice nurse (like me!) who worked down in the peninsula and was connected to this rep through work the same way I was. He was close enough to her that he had the details about what had happened. She had some underlying health issues and had a heart attack. So sad that it happened in a place where she wasn’t able to get the timely help that she needed.  Prior to that trip, if you had asked me to find Belize on a map, I am not sure I would have succeeded. The odds that not only had we intersected in Belize of all places, but that the subsequent conversation happened to make this connection known to me was unfathomable. It didn’t phase the rep at all. “You asked the universe a question and so you got an answer” These stories abound! I would hazard a guess that most people have a ‘small world story’. What is yours?