Spooky Coincidences

Spooky Coincidences

I read the Celestine Prophecy years ago and thought the whole "there is no such thing as a coincidence" angle ridiculous. The idea that all coincidences somehow mean something suggests that they are engineered by a higher being. But imagine if, despite the demands of probability, there were no coincidences. Now that would be spooky. If all coincidences stopped tomorrow, I would hang up my atheist hat "toot sweet" (in the immortal words of Kath Day-Night).

However...despite being a curmudgeonly non-believer, I do love a spooky coincidence. So I thought I would share a few with you now...

Grant and I travelled to France some years ago, and knew of three people living in Paris. The couple we were staying with and a woman that we used to know many years earlier, but did not keep contact with. We bumped into her on our second day there while eating at a Left Bank bistro in an out of the way lane. Spooky.

A few years ago a Australian man was convicted in New Zealand of trying defraud a government department of millions of dollars. When the case was in the news, I was convinced that I had met the man while we lived in Sydney. He worked in IT, so I asked Grant if he knew him. Grant said that he had only a passing acquaintance with the man through a project he had been on in Wellington. So I knew I couldn't have met the guy through Grant. For weeks it bothered me, until the penny dropped. I had worked for the guy at Vodafone for a month when we lived in Sydney. Grant and I had independently known the guy in two different countries, and through working in two different industries. Spooky.

In 2005, when my eldest was still a wee babe, our fledgling family went for a holiday in Rarotonga. We stayed in a house with a deck that stepped straight on to the beach. Each day we watched many people stroll back and forth past our villa. A few days in, while holding my wee one, I stood on the end of deck and watched a few people pass. I saw an elderly man, gnarled walking stick in hand, make his way slowly along the sand. For no particular reason, I stepped out on to the beach and approached him.

His name was Bill and he was subjected to many questions from me. I quickly established that he lived in Puhoi, a small and historic settlement an hour north of Auckland. I knew the area from childhood and shared some memories with him (I love to 'share'). He told me that he used to own the Coach Trail Inn, at Waiwera (just south of Puhoi). This was a regular haunt for my family. My parents would have a Ploughman's lunch while my sister and I swam in the hotel pool (they figured that was cheaper than paying entry to the neighbouring Waiwera hot pools.)

Once, when I was four, Melissa and I swam there while mum and dad helped themselves to a meal (and no doubt a beer or three). This being 1980, and them being my parents, they were fairly relaxed when it came to water safety. In other words, there was no parental supervision - the swimming and eating were two rather separate things.

The pool had two depths, linked by a short transition ramp. I distinctly remember standing in the shallow end and thinking that it had been a long time since we were last there, that I was a big girl, and that by now surely I would be able to touch the bottom in the deep end like Mel could. I stretched my leg out on to the ramp, discovered it was rather slippery and quickly slid down into the deep and under the water.

I recall it like an out of body experience. I can see my hair floating around my face, the string from my frilly red bikini waving about, my limbs hanging useless about me, and a man with large sunglasses and big sideburns leaping in fully clothed to pull me out. There were not many people around and I was very lucky that he noticed me go under, otherwise it is likely I would have drowned.

Bill looked at me with his mouth agape, "You were that little girl that I saved?". There had only ever been one almost drowning at that hotel, it was in 1980, and Bill was the hero of the day. Coincidentally he had been talking about the incident with friends a couple of weeks earlier - the first time he had done so in many years.

Slightly overwhelmed, I thanked him for saving my life, and thereby making my little boy's life possible. I invited him up to the deck to rest his legs, and he was soon joined by his (much younger) wife. They told us about their life in Puhoi, their home, their family, and we said we would try to stop by when we were next in the area (we haven't yet - gulp).

I was glad that, so unexpectedly, I was able to close a chapter of my life that I didn't even realise was open. And I imagine that for Bill, there was a certain satisfaction to be had in our meeting, especially coming as it did in his twilight years.

Spoooooky.