Serendipity

I feel like I have a new friend since lunch on Saturday. 

Maybe even another sister, if I have anything to do with it. 

(One can never have too many sisters.) 

Or friends. 

I think that's proverbial.

Maybe even scriptural.

Spiritual, for sure.

SO.

We met a year and a half ago in a store I'd never been to,

in a city I don't drive to all that often,

on a day when I hadn't planned to go there.  And I certainly didn't have the time.

At first I mistook her for an employee when I walked in, the cheery smile she gave me and all.

      (Good customer service is expected from employees.)

But I already knew what I needed in the store so I returned the greeting and went about my business.  Two or three more times in the minutes that followed I all but bumped into her looking through the same suits and skirts from opposite sides of the same rack.  Or maybe it was pants.  Or sweaters. 

Anyway, two or three more times I noticed her and she smiled. 

This was a classy lady.  She looked confident.  Put together.  Happy, I thought.  The mental note I made each time I saw her said there was something about her that I liked.  But the thoughts didn't linger because how often do you run into a perfect stranger and begin constructing a relationship with them?  Never.   That's how often.

Unless your life is a movie.
 

  In fact, I didn't even think about it.  I just kept shopping.

At the checkout counter the real employees hit me up to open a new credit card.

 I didn't really want one, and mostly didn't want to take the time, but said yes anyway.  I also had an exchange to make.  Which took a long time.

The customers in line at the register next to me came and went.

I chatted with the girl at the cash wrap while I waited for the paperwork to clear.  She knew some people I knew.  We had worked in the same place awhile back...yadda, yadda, yadda. 

Finally, she handed me the charge slip for my signature.  I signed it then picked up my bags and turned toward the door, toward the last register actually, which stood between me and the exit.  In my peripheral vision, I absently noticed that a tall guy was paying for his stuff there and the cashier was handing him his receipt.  Then, just as I looked up, the tall guy turned and I saw who it was. 

"Tom!" 

My surprise at seeing him came through in my voice.  The tall guy at Register 3 was my widower brother-in-law with whom I'd pretty much lost contact in the past many months! 

"What are YOU doing here?" was what he asked me, and I responded in words to the effect that I was the one who should be asking that question since HE was the one

who lived three states away.

His reason for being there was a lot more exciting than mine, I discovered, when he introduced me to the woman he was going to marry that very afternoon.  THE very lady, the one I had mistaken for a store employee when I first walked in! 

What?  Are?  The?  Odds?

Since that time, I've thought about her and Tom a lot, knowing that they live really close now, and wondering how to go about building a relationship with the two of them without inserting myself into theirs uninvited.  I've gleaned bits and snatches of information from my nieces and nephews (my sister's very children!) while trying not to be intrusive or meddlesome or appearing to have an agenda.  (But--I admit it--I have read her blog.  So go ahead, call me a lurker.  Sticks and stones...)

But, to me, blog reading's just not enough.  Families need to be together, and I consider someone married to my BIL to be part of my family.

So that's why I was thrilled when, Saturday, all the stars in the universe finally lined up and she and I got to meet each other for lunch.  It was a good day. 

No, it was a really good day.

And I hope it's the start of a long and happy extended family friendship involving nieces, nephews, grandkids, children, husbands, aunts, uncles, and brothers-in-law.

Did I mention cousins?

Forgive me if I'm feeling a little giddy at the prospects.