There are so many times in our lives when we have collisions with different aspects of our lives. With the help of social media, we are discovering that 6 degrees of separation is really more common than we ever thought. Suddenly, we are all more connected, all more closely intertwined in ways we never dreamed of.
We can all look at our networks of professional, personal, family to discover similarities beyond what we could do even 5 years ago.
My earliest recollection of this "collision" sadly was not my story. No, it was on the news learning a woman who works as a waitress had been pouring coffee for her father for years, every morning, without knowing who he was, and he not knowing who she was.
Then came my own experiences.
In junior high and high school I went to school with a girl who's parents were divorced. She lived in my town with her mother, and her father was about 80 miles south. She lived between them, sharing weekends and summers, or a school year at one point, with her dad. When coming back from her weekend visits she would often tell me about her time with her dad, his girlfriend, her two kids. The girlfriend had a daughter who was 4 years younger than us, and had best friends that were twins, all sharing the same birth date. When she was visiting her father during one summer we would write letters, and always she would mention these other people. After graduating high school we went our separate ways but remained in contact very randomly. Flash forward to meeting my ex-husband, his sisters (twins), and their best friend (all 3 born on the same day) and finding out the people my friend from school was talking about are now part of my family.
When working at Macy's for the cosmetic department I had a client who would come in for men's fragrance. He was older, probably in his 70's or 80's. He was sweet, though. He refused to buy his cologne from anyone but me, probably due to my giving him all the freebies I could find. After about a year of him coming in, and telling me about his cruises he takes, the girlfriend he would buy jewelry for, etc. we talked about his family. His son was an All American in college, and also a great wrestler. He was very proud of his son, and talked about him, his wife, and their kids regularly after that. One day, while talking about his son, he mentioned where his son worked - at the high school I went to. His son was my American History teacher in high school, and I went to school, graduated from high school with his grandson. After learning this, he would regularly bring in pictures of the family so that I could see them, and he could show them off.
Other random collisions are because of social media. I became "friends" with a girl I knew in high school. Among her friends was a girl I went to elementary school with, 80 miles from where I went to high school. Turns out, these 2 somehow met in college, became best friends, and strangely we were all connected. I met another friend at church, became friends on the site, and realized one of her friends is someone I worked with during my freshman year of college some 16 years ago.
When our two worlds collide, I do not think it is by coincidence. I do not believe it is by accident. I believe it is to remind us of how we are all connected to one another in some way. It is to remind us to be kind to strangers, never knowing who they may be in relation to others we know, others we care about, or even love in the past, present, and future. It is to remind us that angels are watching over us, and guiding us to safety through another person to connect the circle of life. Life is a miraculous event, and we are never really alone in a sea of faces. We may be unique in finger print, cell structure, DNA, but we are all still connected in a very intricate way. This reminds me to be kind to the older people I meet; they may be someone's grandparent. This reminds me to be kind to children; they may be offspring of someone I knew or know. It reminds me to be kind to the person who is at the grocery store, department store, gas station, restaurant. They could all be a part of my world without my even knowing it.
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