Here's a Thought

For her birthday dinner, S asked that we go to Applebee's. At the table kitty-corner to us, in my direct line of sight, there was a family of three - mother, father, and son. The son was probably between two and a half and three years old, and very charming. He had a big round face and a very short hair cut, and a squat little body that still had just the right amount of baby fat. Even his slight squirminess was somehow endearing - maybe because he seemed happy, and his parents seemed happy - both with one another and with him. He reminded me of a healthy little English tyke from some other era. His dad was a round-faced man who wore a baseball cap, and his mom was a tidy brunette with a spring green sweater and short nails neatly painted dark pink. While the three of us waited for our food, and then ate, and chatted amiably or teased each other (more gently in a restaurant than we usually do at home, where the dinner-table silliness can be loud), this other little family waited, and then ate and chatted with one another.

Sometimes the cute little boy gave S significant looks, and obviously, I did my share of glancing their way, since they were right in front of me, as it were. But for the most part, we were just two random families having a random meal at the same time in the same restaurant.

Except I thought about how this little boy is only about three years younger than S, and for all I know, sixteen or seventeen years from now, he and she might randomly meet, fall in love, introduce each other to each other's families, marry, and live happily ever after. Or, just as likely, break one another's hearts. And would I remember that I'd seen them somewhere, once? Would the way his mother tilts her head when she laughs ring a distant bell in my memory? Would his father put on a baseball cap at a family barbecue and suddenly transport my mind back to tonight's dinner?

No. Almost certainly, I'd never recognize then this "first sighting," would have absolutely no idea that we'd ever seen one another before. And how often does this happen to all of us? Life is full of this synchronicity, connectivity in the guise of coincidence. And is it happenstance? Or random but not without meaning, as the movie The Happenstance suggests?

I've written this because it will give me a link where memory would not, should we meet these folks again. They were from out of town, staying in a hotel - I know because they saw other folks, also from out of town, at the table behind ours. Here, from what I could gather, for drag racing at the Infineon. The woman introduced herself to someone as "Tara." So I have a name, something besides the other characteristics to go on, if, for example, we see one another again half a lifetime from now. I have a name, and I have this blog entry. And now, you do too.