This blurb will introduce a few stories coming up here.  I have been avoiding my BOHU (Beyond Our Human Understanding) stories because I fear that some of you will just think I am totally insane.  However, I am tired of holding them in and will just tell them now, one after another, until they are done.  Others will pop up later I’m sure, but these are the ones I have told orally over and over, as if I can’t believe they are true.  But they are.  Call them coincidences – but what is a coincidence other than a co+incident.  Things happening simultaneously in time.  What strikes me is the the spiritual nature of these experiences.  It’s not a coincidence like meeting someone at a store at the same time to buy lettuce or something.  So think what you like.  Glean meaning or no meaning as you wish.  I personally don’t know what to think about any of it, really.  Here we go…

My close friend Andi and I have always had a bit of a “connection” across the miles since we became friends when she arrived at my high school one year.  Later, she went to Notre Dame (boo, hiss) and I went to Marquette (Marquette rocks!)  I always feel ancient when I state this to younger readers: It used to cost MONEY to make long distance phone calls.  LOTS of money.  Calls had to be brief and infrequent.  There was only snail mail, obviously.   So Andi and I never talked on the phone and only rarely wrote letters to each other – maybe every six months or so.  Invariably, our letters “crossed” in the mail.  To translate, children, this means that hers was in transit to me and mine was in transit to her at the same time.  This happened all the time and we always took it as a sign of the strong spiritual nature of our friendship.

Andi eventually married Tony, whom I’ve known since we were first graders.  They were cohabitating in Arizona before they married.  I had returned from New York and was living at home, getting pre-requisites for PT school at the local community colleges.  My parents went to Florida in those years and I lived alone at their house.   One day out of the blue I decided I really wanted to talk to Andi.  It had been awhile.  I was broke, though, and didn’t want to spend the long distance money.  So, instead, I called her mom in the next town over, thought I’d just get the skinny and tell her to say hi to Andi and Tony the next time they talked.

Andi’s brother, Fred, answered the phone.  He told me mom wasn’t home and after a few pleasantries I told him to have Andi’s mom call me.  It was later in the day when I got a return call from Andi’s mom.  She started out by thanking me profusely for having the wisdom to not “say anything to Fred – he doesn’t know yet.”  I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but soon heard the shocking truth – Tony had been in a terrible accident, a city bus and a car got into it, and he had the rotten timing of standing on the street corner at that moment – he was pinned under the bus and eventually lost his leg due to the accident.  He had been in surgery that day not to try to save his leg, but to save his life.

It’s been thirty years and I still remember that day like it was yesterday – looking out the window, out of nowhere having a strong urge to talk to Andi, the phone call, the “coicidence.”  I don’t for a moment disbelieve that my spiritual connection with her was stronger than time and distance…