When I returned to the United States after a recent trip to England, I stood out as the only black person among the thousands of travelers in the Copenhagen airport. Even when I can blend into a crowd, though, people are drawn to me for some reason and I’m seldom left alone, as desired, with my thoughts and crossword puzzles. Given that, it was hardly surprising to find myself talking for 10 minutes at my connection gate with a lovely woman named Martha who was traveling from Sweden to South America. When asked about my travels and I said I was researching a book, she told me that she belonged to a writers’ club in her native country. We exchanged email addresses and then sprinted in opposite directions to board our flights.
When Martha reached her destination, she emailed me, saying, “The word for God in Spanish is Dios and coincidence is ‘coincidencia’. Putting the two together to make one word becomes ‘Diosidencia’. I am a firm believer that no encounter in my travels is by coincidence. If I gaze into someone’s eyes and he/she into mine, even for a brief moment, I know there is a reason, and we will meet again.
On the nine-hour flight home, my seatmate was a forty-something computer programmer who was traveling from Denmark to Miami for a week’s work. Although the flight was two-thirds empty because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the flight attendant had offered to relocate him to any of the empty rows, he sat calmly beside me in my window seat for the duration of the flight. For the first five hours, we didn’t interact – we simply watched movies and read books. Neither of us slept nor did we look at each other.
Eventually, we began to talk and for an hour or so he told me about his life – his beloved young daughter, his partner, his son and his passion for cycling. He never asked about my life, nor did I offer any information other than that I was researching a book. We then went back to our ensconced movie watching and reading.
An hour before landing, he told his birthday would be in a week and gave me his home address so I could send him a card if I wanted to. To me, he possessed a certain familiarity I can’t quite explain as we sat together comfortably for the entire flight without once apologizing if our elbows bumped on the armrest or our knees touched lightly. Before disembarking, he looked at me as if he knew me, so I asked, “Am I familiar to you?” His response after a few seconds was, “No, I don’t think I know you, but there is a connection.”
Hmmm…what could he have meant?
We live in what is believed to be a four-dimensional world, but have you ever felt that there is another dimension? As human beings, we all experience that spooky sense of déjà vu, premonition or an eerie, tingling feeling that we eventually dismiss as mere coincidence. We take a step back, decide we’re imagining something that doesn’t exist, deny it happened, then let it go and forget it.
Now, imagine that you experience a string of coincidences, so many that each new one pricks your consciousness and together, they develop significance. Cumulatively, they slap you across the face and spur you to act which, in turn, produces amazing and unexpected outcomes. What if these ongoing coincidences (or whatever you choose to call them) center on a single theme, incident, or experience? Would they demand your attention? How would you handle that? How could you handle that? Would you be skeptical, doubtful, or uncertain?
My book, Until Someone Remembers is not fiction. It is my memoir, my truth from a recovered memory. Each incident has been verified by a doctor of psychology with decades of experience. It is about how multiple coincidences, when acknowledged in their totality, resulted in astounding and conclusive answers. The outcome will make you step back, do a double-take and reflect, but you will not be able to let it go. You will not forget.
My memoir is also about how this recovered memory from long ago led me to step into the unknown and dare to follow each series of coincidences. Each unsure step I took produced insecurity, loneliness, and vulnerability. But once I crossed those thresholds, I was rewarded with answers to longed-for, age-old questions and received gifts through unconventional sources, which created the most amazing journey ever.
My story includes the darkest moments of my life, my search for meaning and purpose, as well as my transformation from a lost and helpless soul into an indomitable spirit.
Even though Until Someone Remembers may be classified as being about “paranormal” experiences, it is not about evil or maleficent entities. Nor is it about spirits, ghostly apparitions or noises in the attic. In fact, it is about light, love and an undying, unworldly bond.
