A Serendipitous Journey

Do you believe in serendipity? Coincidence? A higher power?

The last few weeks have felt as though there is a plan or a schematic of some kind that I just don’t see or understand. I won’t bore you with the details but it seems like every choice I have made recently has brought me to a juncture where I didn’t know I needed to be.

Here’s a part of that story.

On a whim, I decided to venture over to Chesterhill to see the Blues Cowboys perform. They play a lot in the area and I know the bandleader but just can’t seem to make a local show.  If you haven’t seen them, you really should because they’re fabulous. They were playing at Union Hall Theater which had been closed and neglected for many years but is now hosting live performances.

I once sat in that beautiful but empty theater and swore that if it ever reopened I would return someday to see a show. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to fulfill that goal and to see my pal and his band. I’ll tell you more about the theater later this week.

This is my mother’s old stomping grounds and she went along hoping to see some people from her past. That didn’t really go as planned, until the end of the day, that is.

Our first stop was Big Bottom Memorial Park which I wrote about here. Then it was back to Stockport to a little place called Riviera. It sits right on the river and has great pizza and service.

Next we visited a pretty little country church that I fell in love with. My mother had suggested a couple of other places to see but, at the last minute, I pulled over here at a spot-in-the-road called Todds. Friends will tell you that I have an odd fascination with churches and cemeteries. Don’t ask, I can’t explain it. I’m sort of a heathen so it’s probably weirder than I know.

We were preparing to leave when I heard a kitten in distress. Being a cat person who badly wants to have a cat again, this was almost too much to handle. It was under the handicap ramp and I could not coax it out. It sounded like it was alone and we didn’t know if it was trapped or hurt or just waiting for its mama to come back. We had no way to get it out and didn’t know what we would do with it if we did.

Soooo, I left a note on the door for Sunday morning worshipers to find the next day and we agreed to look for someone out working in their yard who might be willing to go attend to the very distressed little one at the church. Yes. We are those people.

Wouldn’t you know that we didn’t see a living soul anywhere? Just as we had given up, my mother spotted a sheriff’s cruiser sitting in a driveway. So she marched up to the front door and introduced herself to the bewildered man of the house who agreed to go rescue the kitten. During this conversation, she learned he was the son of a girl she grew up with.

What are the odds that we would stop at that church or that we would choose that road with the deputy, the child of an old friend, who would actually follow through and go for the cat?

We continued on our journey, making a few more stops along the way.

I wanted to photograph my grandfather’s church. He built that church and pastored it many years ago and I really wanted some pictures. I thought about stopping on my way through town the first time and contemplated stopping before the concert but ultimately decided to wait.

I was glad that I waited.

While we were there, a truck pulled up and a man climbed out. He was my mother’s childhood friend. More exactly, the older brother of a childhood friend. He remembered her and the entire family and he had keys to the church. We got to go inside!

He said that he almost didn’t stop that night but he decided to drop off some things for morning and he was happy to have Reverend Wogan’s daughter come inside.

My mother described it as “coming home.” The church has been lovingly preserved and even the artwork on the walls is the same as when she was young. This gentleman played the organ for us and told of how he learned to play years ago because the church needed someone to do it. My mother played a little on the piano and I snapped pictures.

The rest of the day was great. The roadtrip, the music, people and food – but this encounter made it all worthwhile.

On the way home, we stopped in Amesville where her family lived and where my grandpa owned a hardware store.  Flood waters all but destroyed part of that town over time and there is now a park where the hardware once stood. The place where they lived is just a field and the bus garage where her father labored to support his family is a parking lot. He’s been on our minds a lot this month as we just observed the anniversary of his passing.

But it wasn’t really sad. The Fireman’s Festival was underway – a community celebration complete with live music, bingo, kiddie games and food, brought the street to life. Strains of “Coal Miner’s Daughter” could be heard throughout the small town and seemed appropriate given the sentimental journey we were on that day.

We were poor but we had love
That’s the one thing that daddy made sure . . .

Well a lot of things have changed since a way back then
And it’s so good to be back home again

So much has happened this week. There have been times that I intended to go left but went right. Left late, arrived early, chose to engage in a conversation that I might normally avoid. As a result I have found myself in unusual conversations with unexpected people and in places that I never thought I would go. I even played a part in rescuing a distressed kitten. Whether you call it serendipity, chance or Divine Intervention – it has been an unusual time in my life and one I won’t soon forget.

Where will it all lead? What does it all mean? I guess that’s part of the adventure. We’ll just have to wait and see.