How many of us experience those serendipitous moments that come as a surprise, that make our hearts beat faster and our skin tingle? I call this ”getting the goosebumps.” Here are four amazing stories that happened to me.
Once, at a program I attended, the facilitator asked, “Who has been in touch with classmates from elementary school?” “Huh,” I thought. “Not me.” Suddenly, Chrissy Wilder popped into my mind. I hadn’t thought of her since sixth grade. When I got home, I checked phone messages. The first message was, “This is Christine Wilder Sanders. I’m looking for Joyce Cohen, a long-ago childhood friend.” Goosebumps tingled on my arms! And that began a reunion between two friends who hadn’t seen each other in 50 years.
Here’s another goosebump story. During World War II, my cousin Al Baltz, age 10, who lived in Cologne, Germany, went to the movies with a friend. When he returned home, he saw that his entire family was gone. They had just been taken by the Nazis. Al went into hiding, kind of like Anne Frank, for the duration of the war. After the war, Al, now 13, began searching for his mother or any other family survivors. He went to a location set up for people looking for lost relatives. The tables were arranged alphabetically. He went to the A-B table but didn’t see his family name. A woman overheard him say the name Baltz. She said, “There was a woman here yesterday by that name. She left an address.” Al went to that address, knocked on the door, and, when it opened, there stood Al’s mother.
In graduate school, my apartment lease ran out and I needed a place to stay for the next few months until my graduation. One of my classmates happened to be a nun from the local convent. I told Sister Sarah about my housing dilemma and she invited me to stay at the convent if I promised to respect the other residents’ privacy. One evening, Sister Sarah mentioned a friend who was staying overnight in the next room. When the guest arrived, even before I saw her, I recognized her voice. I had gone to college with her!
One last zinger. On a trip to China, while visiting The Great Wall, I heard English, a rare and comforting treat. I approached the American family and asked where home was. “Rhode Island,” the father said. I replied, “My sister teaches at the University of Rhode Island. “So do I,” he exclaimed. “What is her name?” It turned out that they knew each other quite well. Later that week, I went to a tea shop in Xian. Again I heard English. I initiated a conversation with them and found out that they came from a town near ours in central Pennsylvania! Pretty amazing, right? Has anything like that ever happened to you?