What are the chances?

There are events, occurrences, encounters, which most times, are just random, insignificant, trivial,  or at best unnoticed.  I have a perfect example of one such random occurrence that happened to me yesterday.  I took notice of it immediately and it made me pause to take in just why it morphed into a occurrence that, for the moment, is a profound one.

Let me continue with the boring or interesting details or something that is defined somewhere in between boring and interesting.

When I was looking for a photo to include in my last blog post regarding my personal milestone,  I chose this photo of my grandfather holding me on his lap in the kitchen that is still owned and occupied by my mom.  I looked at the photo this time on my computer screen to see the details more closely.  Yes, I noticed the photo is backwards by the obvious distortion of the wall clock.  Then, of course, the back door is on the wrong side of the room.  Details I failed to notice when the scanning process was moving along at its assembly line pace.  Oh details.  I will fix it.  Maybe.  Nevertheless, the direction of one specific item made no difference in my zeroing in on.  I immediately remembered my parents having owned these at one time.  The drinking glass with the white flowers and the gold ornamental scroll towards the top.  How do I know it was gold in a black and white picture?  Trust me, I just know.  The details were in my brain cells.  Somewhere.  Lurking, resting, colliding with like kind cells, or they were simply just there.  For 49 plus or minus a few years.

Now, why did this style drinking glass memory come running back to me into such clear focus as if it were yesterday I sat on my grandfather's lap 49 years ago?  I was amazed to remember this trivial, tangible item of 1963 or 1964 and in 2012, WISHED, at the moment of remembering,  I had the white floral drinking glass awaiting me at my mom's to test the ability of my brain cells to remember, in clarity,  from which this memory rushed back.

Here is the reason to you dear reader, why I am even writing about this drinking glass from my past.  I was donating a car load of items my daughter found while cleaning her closets.  You know, our stuff accumulates and once it is all packed up you feel immediate need to get it out of the house.  Adam and I took it to the Salvation Army donation center and of course, we had to go into the store to see what treasures we could discover.

I made my rounds, as did Adam.  I went into the drinking glass section with no conscious intention of finding the white floral glass.  Now, you guessed it.  You saw where this was leading as soon as I said I went to the Salvation Army store.  There was a glass identical to my old photograph on a shelf next to and behind other various old and new drinking glasses.  Then, there was another over there.   Another under there. 

I immediately told Adam about this trivial occurrence and he, knowing me pretty well, logically asked if I were going to get them?  I said no because there were only three.  So, I put them back making sure they were separated enough so no one else could see there were three and not just one, and walked away.  What if another someone already had three, or four and needed to add to their collection?  Take a rest brain, you don't need to go in that direction.

We went home and had dinner.  In the mean time I had time to think about what happened a few hours earlier.  After all, cleaning the kitchen after a meal is a great way to mediate and ponder the meaning of life.  It was then I decided I would go back to buy them, if they were still there.  It really would have blown my mind into some major metaphysical search for the meaning of this trivial event if there were not there.  What were the odds,  if the universe were to have also had someone else shopping at the store and ultimately decide they wanted to buy these old drinking glasses  in the course of the same day?   Now, brain, you do need to take that rest.

The story ends abruptly here.  Adam and I went back that night.  After all, we were going right by the building on our way home from the neighboring town's library.  I wanted to buy those glasses.  Not because I needed them or they were worth anything in a monetary amount.  No, they were worth something to me as a way of trying to tangibly bring my grandfather back into my life.  Then if he were back with me, there is a chance my grandmother, uncle and father would be too.  We would all be in the same kitchen that my mom still owns, all gathered around the same table where all of these dear family members would pass me into their laps.  At least one more time.