divine chaos

Preface:

I haven't seen to my Pop in 20 years or so.  I've forgiven him for skipping out on his fatherly duties and have accepted that he walks a path that leads him far away from home.  His dreams were always much bigger than the reality his small suburban family could provide him.  He wanted to change the world.  And he did so through education.

He taught high school English through a bilingual program he developed at Boston English HS.  He lectured passionately and positively about the growing Latino movement in Boston.  He was even invited by Harvard University to do a lecture series about his work.  I remember attending one of his lectures and was completely shocked when a swarm of undergrads rushed the lectern after his presentation, praising him for his work and his passion.  His students loved him, his teacher community praised him, and his family thought he was nuts.

Pop walked down the street pinching a joint in one hand and flashing a peace sign in the other.  His signature look was a  "No Nukes" sweatshirt, overalls and long curly hair wrapped up in a red bandanna.  No apologies.  Crazy genius, I like to call him.  I respect him for achieving some pretty amazing things as a teacher and advocate for the Latin community in Boston, though as a father he pretty much sucked.

Today's story...

In 2001, my husband MG introduced me to Dorchester's Mother Caroline Academy and Education Center, a tuition-free middle school for bright girls of limited financial means.  He'd been involved with the school's fund-raising mission for some time and brought me to their annual spring event in Jamaica Plain.  I remember being greeted by a bunch of smiling girls in plaid kilts, knee socks and oversized red blazers with shoulder pads - all singing, chattering, laughing and doing double dutch.  Suddenly an nun came out of nowhere and jumped between the ropes.  She was really good.  A couple of other nuns ran in and did the same.  It was absolutely adorable.  I laughed out loud.  And so the love affair with MCAEC began.

After several years of attending MCAEC's annual spring gala, I joined the dinner committee.  I'd just had my first baby so my initial participation was dim.  In subsequent years I stepped up my game and gave over more time, eventually co-chairing the annual spring event (officially and unofficially) for 3 years.  As my family grew, I'd take my babies along with me to the school for meetings.  I would sit and breastfeed at the conference table and hand off my full-bellied baby to a friend when it was my turn to speak.  I enjoyed the experiences, but longed for a real connection with the girls for whom I spent so much time raising money.  Plus I was knee-deep in diapers and nap schedules and the 40 minute drive was getting tough.  So in 2009, I took off my co-chair hat and signed up to mentor a student.


My girlfriends KF and CP also decided the time was right to reach out to one of these amazing Mother Caroline girls.  So the three of us attended a meet and greet with the entire 8th grade class at a swank football party in a private box at Foxboro Stadium overlooking the 50 yard line (provided by a generous donor, of course).  After a few awkward conversations, I came upon a charming girl, LR - well, "came upon" might be an unfair way to put it.  Honestly, I practically gave CP the Heisman to get to her, interrupting their conversation and shoving myself between them.  The reason for my boldness, though unknown to me at the time, would be revealed later.  ;-)

LR and I chatted easily for a long while,  sharing some pretty personal things about each other and discovering lots of commonalities between us.  She's an old soul.  Thoughtful, inquisitive, interesting, genuine, beautiful.  I cornered the head of the mentoring program at the end of the game and gushed to her that I had a great conversation with LR and would love to have her as my mentee.  As it turned out, LR liked me, too.  So we were matched and spent the next few months getting to know each other.

The program head shared with us that typically mentor/mentee relationships start off slow.  And I think that's true for LR and me.  Friendship and trust grows over time and as LR has told me, "We have a lot of years to do that."   So we've been sporadically setting up outings and getting to know each other.  A couple of weeks ago LR and I were in the car together, talking about high schools.  I mentioned that my Pop taught English to bilingual students at Boston English.  She said, "My Mom went to Boston English."  Some quick math led us to realize that our parents were there at the same time.  And LR's Mom being Puerto Rican, the likelihood of her knowing my Pop was good.  Really good.  Really really good.

About 8:30 that night LR called and told me that her Mom had class with my Pop, "Mr. Cronin", and remembered times staying after school with him when he'd tell her about my family and his days living in Honduras with the Peace Corps.  Not only that, but she also spent a couple of years as a counselor at Pop's summer camp "Campemento Hispano Internacional" in Waltham.  I had also spent a fair amount of time at that summer camp as a kid, visiting with Pop.  Weeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrd. 

I'd just spent the last couple of days blogging about coincidences so I was certainly conscious of the ones happening in my life and was well-studied on synchronicities.  And right there, on my family room couch, I was living through a pretty major one.  I hung up the phone with LR and chewed on the idea for a minute.  Then I proceeded to burst into tears.  Fat ones.  A full-on contorted-face-heaving-chest ugly cry.

I surveyed my mind to figure out why I was having a fit and realized that I was feeling the loving presence of my Pop for the first time in 20 years.  I felt our intangible connection through the Universe.  I saw the parallels between us, our mutual desire to make the world a better place, and the genetic gifts he gave me that have allowed me to be where I am today.  I understood in that moment that God's power is great.  That there are no coincidences.  That LR is my karmic gift, one that I am so happy to accept.

The things that had to happen and the timing of which those things had to occur was perfect.  Divine.  How on earth could something like this happen without God?  God is perfection, organizing events in just the right way, even though to us it looks like total chaos.  But it's not total chaos, it's divine chaos.

For me there has been a paradigm shift.  LR fell away from my Mother Caroline family neatly settled into my soul family.  We are part of each others' weaving labyrinth of life and always have been.  And now we know.  Now there's no question, no surprise that I practically gave my dear friend a black eye to get to her at that football game over a year ago.  Everything is written.

So a week or so has gone by since figuring out all this.  And in that time, guess what?  I found my necklace - you know, the one I told you about in "example"?  And as I clasped it onto my neck (along side KC's replacement), I thought about the series of coincidences that had occurred over the past week and decided this...

Change (in some cases loss) is inevitable.  Embrace it.  Everything will be okay.  And sometimes, what you think is lost forever is really not lost at all.  God will bring it back to you in one form...  or another. 

Peace!
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