Passing Cars

Have you driven passed someone and made eye contact? At that very split second, you and another person connected eyes and glanced at the same time. Not only that, but your cars, both traveling at highway speeds, had to pass eachother with precise timing.

Think about your life. All of your friends and family. In the entire existence of the world, you were born at the perfect moment and the perfect place to meet the people you now know. You could have been born in the time of Moses, lived during the Civil War, or perhaps you may not have been born until 2525. Even a hundred years difference, a fraction of time given age of the universe, means you could have been dead years before all your friends were even born, or vice versa. Perhaps more pondering is if you were born on the same date, but a different country.

I think about myself. I am adopted, but could have ended up with another family. However, I was perfectly placed in the loving care of my parents during a time they did not believe they could have their own children. All my mom and dad ever wanted were a boy and girl three years apart in age. A year after I was adopted my mother, to my parent's joyful surprise, gave birth to my sister. Within nine months my parents went from having no children to having a boy and girl...yup, three years apart.

But I digress. We were all born during this small blip in time that we call the present. I believe by a grand design it is by no accident that we have crossed paths with the people we know. A relative of mine who worked in the Twin Towers, was sent off to California right before 9/11, and was across the country when he witnessed his work place crumble to the ground. I think of all the husbands and wives who meet eachother at the most "random" of times. Some people end up at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Any which way our lives diverge, they could not have come together any other way then the way they did.

We are all just passing cars. Will you make eye contact, or keep looking forward? You never know who you'll meet today.

*add on thought* Ever see the movie It's a Wonderful Life? One of my all time favorites. The main character,George Bailey(no relation) is given a chance to see what the world would be like if he were never born. What would your world look like? If you could visit your family and friends, albeit as a total stranger, how would there lives look different? How did your existence change the course of history for others?