The Divinity of Coincidence

I was running late, which is pretty typical of me, to take Dee to school. Fortunately, since we are going to a private, ABA therapy place – they are not as big of sticklers for punctuality as public schools. It’s my money, if I want to waste it, that’s my business.

Dee loves school. This is second year of full-on, all school day intervention. Last year, he liked school, but this year! Oh, Vive la Différence! Dee loves school. He loves his teachers. He loves to get up in the morning. He volunteers thoughts like, “Take a shower and then school.” Yes, my little love. First, we take a shower and then we can go to school. With a quick pause in between for that pesky getting dressed and eating breakfast part of the morning.

Back to the part about me being late (again). There was another mother who was also running late. She called out to me as I was about to get into my ‘Burb. “Hi. You probably don’t remember me but we met at SE’s wedding a few years back.” I remembered her. Of course, I remembered her. We had a really great time talking about babies, with my impending birth to Dee fairly evident, and her fairly new baby boy in her arms. I did not remember her name, that would have been too awesome if I had, but I remembered the name of her son, M.

So we stood outside the school and had a nice chat. About the school. About the boys. About the program that Dee is in. It turns out that her son, M, has been in class with Dee’s teacher’s daughter, Lulu. Lulu and M have been buddies from the get go apparently and they play together in the afterschool program too. My newly rediscovered friend, T, told me to let her know if Dee joined the after school program so M could “protect him, too.”

T & M spend a good bit of time talking about people and people’s differences. She said, “If one person has trouble playing soccer, then you help that person. You help him to become a better soccer player. And you remind him of the thing that he does do well.” It’s a really important part of her life lessons to M. She grabbed her cell phone and gave me her phone number with a stern admonishment to call her if we need help picking up Dee or if we wanted to hang out while we were in her area of Lower Alabama.

And then we hit the cars and drove our separate ways. I sat in my ‘Burb for a long minute. Here was a woman I’d met almost 7 years ago, for one evening, who out of the blue stopped me and offered her help, or her ears, for whatever kind of support I needed. What I needed was to remember that I am not alone on my journey with Dee. Not even just supported by my family, but by people who are willing to listen.

“Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous” – He’s only anonymous if you forget to thank Him.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you very much.