Coincidence?, Nah

Friends-NEVER ceases to amaze me how it seems that everything happens for a reason, how total strangers can connect at just the right time according to "the plan".  By the way, just for the record,  I no longer believe in the idea of coincidence.


Today was the day to travel to the Bicycle Peddler in Wichita to pick up my bike.  After a nearly 2-month wait for a new carbon fork to come in (due to a mass recall notice on Specialized bikes), my bike was fixed and ready to go.  Even though I won't be taking it out on the street until early April, I have been anxious to get it back to Hutch and on the wind trainer at my house.  Before I went to pick it up, my oldest son (Ricky) and I stopped for breakfast at The Good Egg and that's where the strangest thing happened.  


It's a little hard to hide the fact that I'm sporting one big old long-arm cast, so when we were being seated, I wasn't surprised that our server would make a comment.  But it wasn't THAT he said anything, but rather what the first words out of his mouth were.."Wow, looks bad.  You shattered your radius didn't you?"  The look of shock on my face must have been evident.  How in the heck did this guy know that much about me in the first 60 seconds of our meeting one another?


Well, when my mouth stopped dropping open and I found the words to answer him, I gave him the "Reader's Digest" condensed version of the saga of "old lefty" and when I was finished,with a huge grin on his face, he told me his story. 


 Just when I thought I was the ONLY one on earth who could do such damage to an arm, I was now standing face-to-face with a guy who nearly verbatim did the same thing I did but only on a skateboard.  His "old-lefty" was in the exact same shape as mine, just one year ago.  Heck we even have matching scars and hardware inside of us.  The only difference was that he ended up not needing a bone graft like I did.


Meeting that young man, a total stranger in a place that we only at the last minute decided to go to for breakfast, was a "part of the plan" in my getting better today.  He encouraged me and reminded me that it has taken the better part of a year or more for him to get better and that I too will be pretty much back to normal in time.  You know, I couldn't help but to feel better after visiting with him for those moments this morning.  


Friends, is there someone out there you know who could use a few words of hope and good cheer this day?  That young man found me and my day was made 10 times brighter because he cared enough to tell his own story to me.  Whoever he is, Peggy "my new middle name is ironic" Miller says "Thanks!"

"old-lefty's" new powder blue long-arm cast and the bike's new carbon fiber fork-Come April 1st we'll be back together once more.