Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Serendipity

Life is full of serendipitous moments. Some might call them Agape, little unexpected gifts sprinkled throughout our lives. I received one last week.

Early one morning, well before the sun was up, I was sipping my first cup of coffee of the day and making the rounds on the internet. Checking in on all of the blogs and web sites I follow to see what was new. And there it was, in the comment section of my last post on this blog. A comment from Susan Patton. I sat up a little straighter, furrowed my brow tried to recall when I had posted a comment on this blog under my own name.

It turns out there is another Susan Patton in the world, no surprise there. This one also has an interest in photography (now it's getting a little more interesting). She found me in the process of trying to purchase the domain name Susanpattonphotography.com and here it comes, also hails from western Pennsylvania. At that point she had my attention. I quickly clicked on her name to see where it might lead. I was not disappointed to find myself on the profile page for her web site, Dreamin' Slippers. It turns out we have more than a name in common. Susan hails from New Castle, Pennsylvania, my home town, has two sons (although much younger than my own two boys) and has B's blog flagged on her site as a blog she follows.

I thought of little else that day. I knew I had to find out more. The coincidence that someone with my name who lives in my home town (where I have not lived for over 30 years), has two sons and shares a love of photography would actually find me and make contact... serendipity at its finest.

But it gets even better. My parents and her grand-parents were friends many years ago. They attended the same church and had enough in common to see each other socially. Her parents and my sister and brother-in-law were in the local Jaycees together when they were much younger and we all spent time at the wonderful place on Lake Erie know as " Camp Lambec." I graduated from high school with her step-mother's brother and an old friend of mine was once her Sunday school teacher. All of this and we haven't even begun to investigate the Patton connection.

The emails have been criss-crossing through cyber space as we keep adding pieces to this crazy jig saw puzzle. It is reminiscent of "Six Degrees of Separation" and whether you believe it or not, this crazy world we live in is very small indeed.




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do believe it, but it's very weird! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

S. Patton said...

I agree! Weird with a side of wonderful, I like to think :) (this is Susan Patton Jr, by the way!)

Audrey said...

OK - this is amazing. I, too, wondered about her when I read her comments. They did beg to be investigated! It is a small world indeed. I see she likes chocolate - wonder if she knows Jameson Candy?

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