As you recall, I had learned of a family death, a firing, and found a tiny cold woman in the space of an hour. I was in a hotel in Saskatoon for another night and was reacting to these events.
Flopping on the bed, I composed a text to my husband (on the farm), daughter (in the city) and son (at college in a nearby city) about the odd events of the day. I briefly listed the phone calls, death, firing, upcoming morning meeting, wrong turns, and chance meeting. My daughter commiserated right away, my husband never did answer (we talked by phone later), and after 45 minutes my son sent a strange text.
“They’re still there,” it said. “I’m back in the truck and now the shakes are setting in.”
‘The young ass is texting the wrong person,’ I glowered. ‘He’s been partying or something. He didn’t even read about the weird stuff that happened to me today.’ I texted back several question marks in annoyance (Moms can be passive aggressive, too.)
No response.
Several minutes later, after re-reading his odd message several times, I sent, ‘Are you ok?’ Still no reply.
In his late teens, my son was not the most communicative guy. I would try a time or two to get a reply, then give up. Getting information from him is like trying to pull the teeth from an angry bull. But even to my jaded attitude this silence felt wrong.
I debated about phoning him. My phone came with my job, and I tried to avoid using it for personal calls, but this time Mommy Sense won out.
“Wait, now,” I can hear you say. “What does all this have to do with coincidence?” Be patient, dear reader. The story takes another twist.
My ManSon’s deep voice sounded disturbed. I learned that he had sent me a text that hadn’t come through, and that the one I received was a post-script.
He had been on his way to his lodgings after class, a cold twenty-minute drive into the dark, around supper time. He spotted a man in the ditch performing CPR on another man, a woman standing nearby. Part of ManSon’s course had been updating his First Aid. He joined in on the rescue attempt. He learned that an older couple had been walking their dog, and the husband had dropped. The other man had spotted them and started CPR. As they worked, more of the community appeared, watching, talking. Someone ran to a nearby business and brought back a defibrillator. After one attempt the machine indicated that it should not be used a second time. The rescuers continued to work on the victim until an ambulance showed up. “It must have taken 45 minutes for them to get there,” he complained, “and by then all of Humboldt was there watching us.”
Unfortunately, the man was declared dead, and my young son watched them load the body into an ambulance and drive away. About five minutes before he got to his lodging the adrenaline and shock kicked in, and he’d pulled over to collect himself. That’s where he was when I called.
We talked for quite a while, my teenager with the big heart trying to wrap his head around his first major brush with mortality, and me wishing I could be with him to give comfort. As our talk wound down and his voice had changed from disturbed to exhausted, I wrapped up with, “I wish I could be there to give you a hug, Hon. You did all the right things, but it’s got to be rough.”
“I wish you could too. … But maybe I can make it back home on the weekend.”
I contemplated the possibility of the upcoming funeral for Dave being on Saturday, but decided not to mention it. “I’d love that if you can. We don’t see nearly as much of you as we’d like.”
“Hey, wait. You’ll be here on Friday. I’ll get that hug then.”
My mind slowed, contemplating my internal calendar. This was Wednesday evening. I had one more day of the training I was in then would drive the hour and a half home Thursday evening. Why on earth would I go to work the following day, deal with the plethora of things that would be on my desk after 3 days away, then turn around and drive another two hours to visit someone who would be done his course this very week? Especially with a possible funeral on Saturday?
“Um, hon? Why on earth would I want to go to Humboldt on a Friday?”
“It’s my grad, remember?”
“I… what? No, I don’t remember. What grad? What are you talking about?”
“My course is done tomorrow, and we have a grad celebration Friday night. I’m sure I told you. I got your tickets and everything. Two tickets, so you and dad came come to the supper.”
I was bamboozled. A consummate calendar-keeper devoted to my offspring, there is no way that he could have told me about this event and me not having recorded it. Mr. Communication had not actually told his parents that he expected us at this milestone. He assumed we knew, because (after all) HE knew.
A cold wave ran over me as I envisioned him after the trauma of that evening to end up standing all alone at the grad supper, shaved, combed, spiffed up, and solitary, surrounded by classmates and their families, frantically texting us and asking when we would arrive, because the supper was ready to start. A supper two hours away. Three, if you count me getting away from work, going to the farm to get my husband, and then heading south. The painful scene had been prevented by an offhand comment.
And this, dear reader, bring me back to the contemplation of coincidence vs things happening for a reason. If I had not been disturbed by the phone calls I made after that day’s training I would have missed the traffic snarl and gone back to my hotel without meeting Sherri. If I hadn’t met Sherri and decided to share the story with my family, I wouldn’t have been expecting a text from my son.
If my son hadn’t been trying to save a man’s life in a snowy ditch at the same time I was transporting a hospital escapee, he would not have sent me a confusing text.
If his text hadn’t been so odd, I would not have phoned him that cold Wednesday evening.
If I hadn’t phoned him and offered a hug, he wouldn’t have mentioned seeing me on Friday.
If he hadn’t told me about Friday, we would have missed his grad, to his great disappointment and my utter frustration.
Coincidence? Sometimes I wonder.
Cathy Bendle finds humor in the quirks of everyday life, from training teachers to dodging housework. When not writing, she’s either laughing at her pets, frantically Googling for her work assignments, or playing on her iPad. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
