Fate, Coincidence, Miracle….
Questions, confusion, faith….
Opening the Pandora’s box..
I ponder where I sit with those words. I straddle between Agnosticism and Spirituality. I say spirituality and not religious, because my practice of religion is slightly different to the norm. I do make the occasional visit to the Hindu temple. I would kneel down at the chapel and same at Buddhist temples. It is just a place where it is peaceful and quiet to gather my thoughts, my fears, my appreciations, my hopes.
I do believe in the possibility of a God or a higher being. But do I believe in total submission? I find it hard to believe that “God” would be so vain that he needs your prayers/praise. I would think he is above all that. If I was God, I would rather my disciples live peacefully than create wars on my behalf. Hence the reason for me to give up on religion but embrace the creations of God, fight to preserve the good and pray for the ultimate miracle “chocolate to lose weight”. Maybe I should start a religion. My slogan would be “For the love of chocolate”. Gone off track again. In my last birth I must have been a Gold fish. Promise some serious epiphany in the next paragraph. So please read on.
I believe in doing good simply because it is the right thing to do. And what feels right to me, not because it was written in some book. I do sit on the cross roads of gray at times. Educate yourself and thy neighbor. If it is a subject that you don’t know much about (eg Islam, LGBTQ and what ever else that you have not grown up with), Educate before you swallow in assumptions and rumors.
So do I believe in Fate? Whether it be a great outcome or it be a disastrous one, I/we tend to lean on the word “Fate”. It is fate that two people met and fell in love. It is also fate that their love didn’t last forever. I think in the latter we would say “it wasn’t meant to be”. Someone meets with an accident and dies, well that was fate. He survives that’s a miracle.
Questions, confusion… well then is blind faith the answer, but then again not everything can be answered by Science either. So what is the answer. Most times chocolate seems to do the trick.
The following are a trail of incidents that happened between my dad and his twin brother, not just the two of them, but by all of us in their circle.
My dad and my uncle aren’t Identical Twins. In fact they are polar opposites in their looks and behavior. All their lives they had things happening to them which are similar but opposite as well. Yes I note the oxymoron, but read on…
My dad – Tall, Studious, funny, passive, pretty ordinary in Sports
My uncle – short, Studies – questionable, funny – more questionable, passive – definitely not, amazing in sports
My dad – One Daughter
My uncle – One Son
So here starts the explanation for the oxymoron similar but opposite. One kid each but one had a girl and the other a boy.
Now both these kids (ie the daughter is thy self) without prior thinking or planning ended up marrying into the same family. Please concentrate Sri Lankan Family Tree being explained, My husbands sister(my sister in law who happens to be my bestie) married my first cousin. Again we didn’t plan it that way. We were all living in different parts of the world at that time.
Now these two men, my cousin and my now husband share the same first name. They both worked on ships. Here comes same but opposite. My hubby joined as a Deck Cadet and ended up as the ships Captain. My cousin joined the engine room and ended up as Ships Chief Engineer. Coincidence?? I shrug my shoulders.
My sister in law and myself both studied Science subjects but ultimately ended up in banks. She was in retail banking, I was in Corporate Banking, foreign exchange and financial markets. Same same but slightly different. I got out of it after sometime but remained in accounts based jobs. Coincidence?? I purse my lips.
My Aunty and my mum were both heading for a Hysterectomy. My aunt’s surgery was scheduled for September and my mum’s was in November. It was school holidays so mum decided to make a trip to her home town so she could be of assistance to my Aunty. The day of surgery dawns, my dad, mum and my uncle all accompany my aunty to the Hospital. Once my Aunty was wheeled back from the surgery mum and dad decided to head back home. It was rather late in the evening. On their return journey my mum broke her leg while getting off the bus. She had to be taken back to the hospital and had to undergo emergency surgery for her leg and was on the next bed to my Aunty. So the wives of the twins were attacked by the”Twin Force” too. Coincidence? Yes okay, I am happy to put that down to coincidence. Read on.. spooky stuff on its way.
Life wasn’t meant to be happy all the time. I am not sure if its not meant to be but it never is. My dad said good bye to us at the age of Fifty Three. My uncle was living miles away in a farm felt a pang in his chest on the night of my dad’s passing and the next morning he was delivered with this shattering message. The funeral rites are usually done by the son. My cousin was out at sea at that time, my uncle was then asked to do the rites. The priest chanted the mantras and was instructing uncle how to do the various rituals. I have never seen my uncle so subdued. Tears just poured down his cheeks as he was performing the last rites for his twin brother. I thought it was almost cruel to have asked him to do the rites. He later told me that it was really hard but also felt it was fitting and was his privilege.
A few months later. My uncle was about to catch a bus to another village. Just before he boarded the bus, he had an informal chat to this shop keeper/friend/acquaintance. I am just picturing the scene, uncle with a cup of tea or coffee, having a chat with this other bloke, knowing my uncle, he was probably complaining about some one or something. Finishes his cuppa and says “anyway I am off” and gets on the bus. A few hours later the shop keeper hears that the bus that just left had met with a horror accident. So this man rushes out in his car looking for the bus. These are remote areas. So I am guessing they just had the one ambulance, which had already left with injured survivors. They had left the deceased on the road to come back for later. The shop keeper found my uncle on the road left for dead. His nose and ears ripped off, with multiple fractures but somehow this man felt that he was still alive. So he rushed my uncle to the hospital with all the bits of pieces that were beside him. He was patched up and came out good as gold. So he had a near death experience but he survived.
We had our kids and settled in Australia and them in Canada. I was very close to my cousin. Both without any siblings of our own considered each other to be brother and sister. When we were young, my cousin would spend most of his school holidays at our place, he could accompany my dad to the lab and study with dad. At younger days he would teach me Caram (a board game played in most parts of the sub continent). We did sometimes fight especially when I get caught cheating in card games. It progressed from Caram to tutoring me Physics as I neared year 12. It is really bizarre how we both happened to marry into the same family. Fate, coincidence… what ever it was, it made us very close.
I think it was year 2000 or 2001, I think it was just after the Sydney Olympics, the four of them came over to Sydney for a holiday. We celebrated my cousin’s 40th at our house. Jan (my sister in law) and I were being are normal selves. We raided all the shops and made our husbands shiver. Life was beautiful. This was in May. Clocks strikes 12.00 on the 31st Dec and we receive a call from the two of them. Excited as ever wishing us Happy New Year. We didn’t talk for long as both of us wanted to ring other people as well. It’s our wedding anniversary on the 19th of Jan. I remember my cousin telling me clearly, we call you on the 19th and we can talk more. How was I to know that he wasn’t going to keep that promise.
I am going to leave it at that for the moment. Promise to continue soon. Keep pondering Fate or coincidence.
To be cont…
Daily Prompts : Coincidence, Educate, Disastrous
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/coincidence/
Uma's life and thoughts 