Coincidences

Coincidences

Noel Laflin

1-29-20

David and I snuck off to the county courthouse five years ago today and were married.The young lady clerking that morning served as our justice of the peace; her co-worker was a witness.

It was a very small affair, but large in memory.

Without a Supreme Court ruling in our favor, this could never have happened. And as I have heard from so many friends and strangers, none of us thought this could ever have happened in our lifetime.

So, here’s to good rulings and happy endings.

And here’s to you, Davy.

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I’m sitting in a pretty chapel waiting for a memorial service to begin in a short while. It’s noisy in here as friends greet one another - voices bouncing off the high arched ceiling - but I did overheard someone behind me remind their spouse to silence their phone.

The comment, along with the setting, reminds me of the time five of us - my immediate family, to be precise - gathered for a funeral for a beloved neighbor. That was thirty-one years ago, long before everyday mobile phones - but pagers were pretty common.

I had remembered to shut mine off, but my brother had not, And sure as shootin’, half way into the somber service, his pager went off. He scrambled to silence it, but by then we had all jumped out of our seats.

If a phone goes off today I hope it’s a musically inclined melody.

We don’t need two hundred folks leaping from their seats this morning.

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Life is full of interesting coincidences. Here’s one that struck me just now.

I wrote two short pieces this morning, one about sneaking off to the old county courthouse in Santa Ana to marry David five years ago today, and then a short while later wrote about a memorial service that I was attending. The two pieces were both penned out within thirty minutes of one another.

When I finished that second piece, I looked up from the pew in which I was seated and suddenly paid closer attention to the large photograph that was projected up in the front of the chapel. It remained in place for the next hour. It was a fine shot of the fellow for whom we all had gathered in order to pay a final tribute. The photo was of our mutual friend standing in front of the old county courthouse in Santa Ana.