A story of destiny, fate or God? Fulfilling generational purpose.

I have always felt a sense my life was driven by destiny. Driven to a purpose, career and a community.

Some Synan family history.?

The family, established in Wales, the Synan clan joined Strongbow invading Ireland. There they built castles, towns, fought in battles and disputes becoming Irish. As well losing it all in a property decision made by the King.?

The Synan’s eventually made it to America settling in Virginia. A Synan from Virginia came to this area and ‘married a Cincinnati girl’ and lived in that city, as an obituary read.?

Our family has a long history of generational splits and disconnections. I not knowing much of my family history, chain or actually not giving it much thought until recently.

I have written and spoken in my Tedx Talk knowing since I was a kid, I wanted to be a police officer, believing I could change the world.?

I walked through the front door of the Newtown Police Department on March 1st 1993, stopping in the foyer, overwhelmed with a feeling, hearing a voice saying “This is where you will change the world.”

I remember driving through Newtown after I started with my father who told me his father was buried in Newtown Flag Spring Cemetery. The only cemetery in town. He just a toddler when his father died. He never knew his father. I never knew my grandfather.

Not knowing meant I didn’t really think much about any connections.??I had no idea how or why I ended up in Newtown? Just a strong sense this is where I was meant to be. A strong feeling Newtown was my “home.”?

In the past couple weeks, I’ve had distant family members reaching out. Introducing themselves and giving some family background that has in one way connected some of the pieces, while highlighting the mystery of destiny.?

Although I had some experience with those that struggled with alcoholism and mental health, I did not know it anything but “normal” in my own life. Surely, not enough to consciously take on a personal crusade for such issues.?

But once again fate, destiny or God would bring me to a Newtown family who knew all too well these pains. After the last of that family, last of a generation died from addiction I heard that voice again saying, “This is where you will change the world,” drove me to write an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer. That was the beginning of fulfilling my life’s purpose as a police officer to change the world by changing the way we view and deal with addiction.

I was convinced my mission sprung from this incident, never believing any personal connection. Until I recently received an email from a relative. Finding out our family had generations of addiction and mental health.

They spoke of my father’s father not knowing he rests in the cemetery in Newtown where I was the police chief. Not knowing a crusade sprung from the generational loss of a family to addiction in Newtown.

Only knowing-

‘Seeing your work with addiction confirms something?I heard often?as a child: Synans are either sinners or saints and not?much in between.?Full disclosure, my brother Thomas Synan is being released from the VA Department of Corrections in February after losing so much of his adult life to drug and alcohol abuse and crimes committed under the influence. He said that a fellow inmate brought you to his attention a few years ago when he read something about your novel approach to law enforcement and addiction.’

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I was taken aback by the name, circumstances and the happenstance of a stranger inmate connecting a Thomas Synan inmate, resulting from addiction, and a Thomas Synan Police Chief working to change addiction.

Sparked by a family of generational addiction, maybe meant I was at least to create a break in my families own generational cycle. In a way a destiny laid out. Perhaps a subconscious blueprint brought me to people and Newtown to not just heal the world but me, my generations.?

All the irony is not lost on me. I came to Newtown working in a community where a family member is buried, a generation many didn’t know, I did not know. To advocate for a generation of family in Newtown lost to addiction. To find out a family member, we never meeting but both bearing the same name...

A Thomas Synan in prison from the consequences of addiction. A Thomas Synan working to change the consequences of addiction.?

Perhaps in a series of synchronicities placed by God, fate or destiny precisely where they needed to be, driven by a Synan buried in Newtown. All now connected by the mystery of humanity.?

An explanation of why this purpose? Why this community of Newtown??

Has brought my life full circle.

That day I visited the grave in Newtown of a Synan.

T. Synan sat next to Okey T. Synan.?

The first time, at least physically meeting.??I felt a sense of closure, understanding and a destiny fulfilled.

The circle completed in a message that the sinner and saint are not different. At times even with the same name. A blend that in each sinner is a saint and in each saint is a sinner. Always connected by the constant struggle of life.

Always connected in that no person, no community, no life is random.?

Our lives follow a path, not the same as another but those paths whether we know it consciously or subconsciously are never really separated.

I am still unsure if it is destiny, fate or God. Maybe a touch of all.

I now wonder. Was it the world I was trying to change or me? Was it the world I was trying to heal or me? Was it an effort to break generational cycles? Was I coming “home” to Newtown or had to come to Newtown to find my “home?”

Those are questions I must continue to work through. A struggle of which to believe? Fate, destiny or God??

However, I no longer question any ‘why’-?Me? This place? These people? My purpose?

It all has been answered in the fulfilment of purpose.?I have come home to me.

You never know whose life you will make a difference in. A stranger. Family. A long-lost relative. Or your own.

In it all, there is one thing I have grown convinced of. A lesson I am sure I have learned.

It is a lesson, that your purpose will always take you to the people and places you were meant to be.?

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