The Alignment of Random Things
Much of life is random. The chance blending of fennel seed sautéed in olive oil with onions and garlic, Cannellini beans and cauliflower that results in a soup you declare to be the best you’ve ever tasted. A friendship that inspires you to pick up a paintbrush, fly to Italy and begin painting just months before you are eligible for Medicare. A fall and subsequent brain trauma that suddenly blindsides a person who until now has lived an extraordinarily healthy and illness-free life.
Why things happen, along with how and when they do is largely the result of the alignment of random things. Kit’s fall a year ago while reaching up to pull the cord on an overhead fan in our living room changed his life and ours on a dime. A year later, he has diminished physical strength and moves about the house with a walker. Trips to the grocery store now require he transfer from the passenger seat of our car to a wheelchair that I push. Purchases are limited to what he can carry in small shopping basket resting on his lap and what I can stuff into two old Trader Joe’s shopping bags that dangle off the handles of his wheelchair.
As a result of his initial fall and a recent one, we have a handicap license plate and travel with a collapsible wheelchair and aluminum walker. In a western town founded in the 1850s, sidewalks, parking, and doorway entrances are frequently a challenge. And in the Sierra Foothills where we live, walking around outside has been treacherous even with trekking poles and my trusty YakTraks strapped to my boots. You just don’t know what could happen, but you can bet that sooner or later, something will.
On a morning recently, our daughter Heidi arrived set to spend the day with her dad. For the first time in almost three weeks, most of the snow blocking our driveway during the prior two weeks of snow, blizzard conditions, and rain had been cleared with our snowblower and hours of shoveling. I’d made a grocery list, had bills to mail, and prescriptions to pick up at a local pharmacy. During a 10-day power outage, I started up the car in the garage with the door open and let it run to charge the battery. First time, it started right up, just like our generator and snowblower did. Piece of cake. I should have known my luck with machines wouldn’t last.
Shopping list and keys in hand, I got in the car, turned the key, and suddenly every light on the dashboard lit up as the battery breathed its final breath and died. Long time AAA Plus members, I got my card from my wallet and called the road service number on the back. AAA informed me that there were a lot of people ahead of me because of recent severe winter storms. They’d send me a text as soon as one of the towing companies that contract with the Nevada County AAA office was available.
But as luck (finally) would have it, a text pinged shortly thereafter on my phone informing me that a driver would be arriving in six minutes. I walked down the driveway just as a bright yellow Triple M Towing company truck pulled up and I was greeting by the driver, Brittany Sahar. Ready for action, she deftly negotiated our steep driveway, parked near the open garage, and grabbed her battery charging gear. She found me under the hood checking the dip stick to see if the oil level was low.
After running a couple tests, Brittany confirmed that the battery was indeed dead. Car batteries I learned are usually good for just two years and ours predated our 1,850-mile drive from Missouri to Nevada City in April 2021. Fortunately, her truck was well stocked with new batteries including one that our 2009 Toyota Rav 4 needed. While she worked her magic changing out the old for the new battery, I brought her hot coffee, sugar, milk, and a cornmeal blueberry muffin that I’d just baked the prior day.
When the job was done and Brittany was set to head out to her new assignment, I learned it was her wedding anniversary. Nested between the driver’s seat and passenger seat was a bodacious bouquet of Asiatic lilies from her husband. I asked about the origin of her last name “Sahar” and learned it was an ancient name from a region that included Persia and Palestine. As a gift to remind her of our encounter on her anniversary, I gave her a National Geographic map of the Middle East from Afghanistan to North Africa for her 6 ½ year old daughter who loves maps and has a head of curly hair like our daughter Heidi.
It was a morning of random things, coming into alignment in a totally unexpected but wonderful way.