Daily Musings – 8/6/09 – “The Joy of Serendipity”

In the early 90s, my mother and stepfather (her then recent “boyfriend”) went off on a long-term road trip to “find” themselves after my parents’ divorce.

When the house was sold, they bought a travel trailer and went off to tour places they’d never seen. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Their exploration brought them to the middle of the Arizona desert, during the summertime–somewhere along I-40 between the few towns that populated the stretch. It was a beautiful area and they were enjoying the scenery when their travel trailer began acting funny.

The hulking beast of a vehicle fizzled out on the side of a rural road, after they’d left the freeway hoping to find a service station. My stepfather knew what was wrong, but hadn’t anticipated such a thing happening–and didn’t have the tools to fix it.

They were in the middle of nowhere; quiet and baking. After sitting for an hour, they deliberated on trying to hike back to the freeway to get help, or on going farther up the rural road. There were no call boxes in sight and nothing but shrubbery manzanitas in all other directions.

As we often get in enclosed-trouble situations, they got really worried. It was getting hotter and they weren’t sure what to do–so they figured they’d brave it and head back to the freeway. It was then that they noticed a beat-up old pickup truck roaring up the rural street. They had a hunch they should wait–and they were right. The truck pulled to a stop and a man in his fifties climbed out and asked them what was wrong.

After a short discussion, the stranger realized he had the part they needed right there in the back of his truck, amidst other equipment. The travel trailer was quickly repaired and they eagerly offered the stranger money, which he refused. They were back on their way in no time, feeling great.

Four years later, my stepfather’s mother moved to Kingman, Arizona for health reasons. She had gone through a terrible divorce from an abusive husband and was getting her life back together and attending college for the first time, as an older adult.

Everything went well for her. She wrote a long letter that November, telling her son she’d be coming back to see them for Thanksgiving–and that she had a surprise for them. She’d met a wonderful man. He was “the one” she’d been seeking her whole life.

Imagine their surprise when she arrived for Thanksgiving with the stranger that had rescued them from the desert heat.