You're Not Alone

When situations and factors collide in a seemingly unlikely way to form what we commonly refer to as “coincidence,” what do you see?

A transpersonal psychologist might call it “synchronicity.” A religious person would likely attribute it to the working of God’s hand. A scientist may tell you that your reticular activating system is simply operating in overdrive.

Regardless of your opinion of what coincidences mean or how they happen, the fact is they do.

Some days I experience so many synchronicities I feel like I am sitting in the middle of some kind of mysterious portal, witnessing something special, something secret, something sacred about the fabric of the universe.

It is with these observations that I introduce to you a piece of mine that was recently published in an anthology called “Resilience: How We Heal,” put together by my friend Becky Magnolia Pourchot . This is a candid piece about a time I ended up very ill in a hospital waiting room and seemed to recognize someone I didn’t expect to see.

The conclusion of my story and my current thoughts about the message of such coincidences is a simple one. “You’re not alone.” That’s the message I see every day through the mysterious interworkings of this numinous, dynamic, ever-flowing Creation we are part of. What do you see?

The Waiting Room at the End of the World?

????????? It was an odd turn of events. I found myself seated in a dingy hospital room with a group of other admitted patients awaiting advanced imaging. The five months of chemo I'd received for Hodgkin's Lymphoma had eradicated the cancer but hadn't been kind to my body. I was underweight, bald, in a wheelchair, and on oxygen. I didn't know if the results of this test would give me hope that I'd be going home or leave the doctors further confused about how to help me.?

??????????? As I looked up from my potent reverie, my eyes caught sight of a familiar face. An older man, he was probably at least sixty years older than my twenty-four. Pale and resigned to his fate, he was, like me, covered by the dull, worn fabric of a hospital gown- the great equalizer of human beings. He had been a professor of literature, a very good one, in fact, and I had been his student for Shakespeare I and II. I recalled the tattered shirt he had worn when walking into class one day, tearing at it with all the dramatics of a mad King Lear.?

? ?????????? I'd approached him for help one afternoon. I’d sat in front of his desk with a “colorful” pile of papers. My ideas for the Romeo and Juliet assignment were scrawled onto scraps of paper and glued together on larger pages in an attempt to find some common thread between my disjointed musings. I found it impossible to organize my thoughts at that time, perhaps a side effect of the various drugs I had been experimenting with. He tried to help me find my voice as a writer. Later, when I decided to drop out of college, he gave me a WP (Withdraw Pass)[1] and wrote me a note saying that I was a bright young woman and that he sincerely hoped I would resume my education.

? ?????????? Now, here we were, the two of us together, in the waiting room at the end of the world. A young woman who had been running from her feelings and fears for years, fighting off self-destructive urges while clothed in the garments of a peace-loving hippie, now hanging on to the threads of a life she wished she had learned to love better. And an old man, who from all appearances had lived a meaningful and respectable life, educating young adults and sharing his enthusiasm for great works of literature for decades. He and I were different in many ways, but in this room, we were simply human beings in hospital gowns, teetering precariously on the edge of the "now" and the?"what's next?"??

?????????? Should I say something? Should I thank him for encouraging me? Should I tell him I returned to college and graduated with a Bachelor's degree a few months before my cancer diagnosis? Did I have the physical strength or emotional energy to speak up from across the room to this man I thought I recognized? Was the fact that we had ended up very sick in this hospital room together depressing or a sign from God? While I pondered what to do, my name was called by the imaging technician, and before I knew it, I was whisked away to whatever destiny the Divine yet held for me.

???????????? Later, from the comfort and sanctuary of my home, I would read the obituary of my former professor. It was a pleasant story of a well-lived life. Fourteen years have passed since I saw him that day in the hospital. Every so often, I recall the surreal moment when our paths crossed one last time. I am not sure why God put us in that room together. Maybe God wanted to tell me that I would reach a ripe, old age and that my obituary would one day tell the story of a well-lived life, like his. Or maybe God wanted to remind me that angels are everywhere - acting through ordinary people like you and me- and that even when we are in the waiting room at the end of the world, we are never alone.?

[1] A Withdraw Pass grade is more merciful than a Withdraw Fail as it doesn’t impose penalties on a student’s GPA.