On Thursday night my younger daughter and I went to my friend Bernadette’s house to celebrate the break-fast meal with her and her family, and some family friends. Bernadette and I go way back, and the way we re-connected is, perhaps, a sign that there are forces moving behind the scenes of our lives, and they do not only bring with them bitterness. 

(The break-fast is the meal by which you break your Yom Kippur fast. This has become a tradition for us—to join in this first celebration of the New Year. And what are holidays for other than to create traditions with family and/or friends?)

My family and I moved from Israel to Virginia in August 2000. I didn’t know anybody here except for a few people from work. (It always comes as a lovely shock when I tell people that it was my job that brought us here, they so expect it to be mr ex’s job.) About two weeks after we arrived mr ex had to go back to Israel for some green card logistics, and so it was just me and the girls (a sign of things to come). There was an International Children’s Festival at Wolftrap (a national park for the arts) near our house that we decided to go to; I’m not talking about a neighborhood festival, this is a festival for the entire Washington, D.C., region.

It was a beautiful day. We walked around, we attended workshops, we took in this new place at which we had arrived. We went into the open-air auditorium looking for seats for the afternoon performance. Just as we were scootching into some seats, I looked up and in the row behind us was a face I had last seen decades ago. It was the same face, and the same smile, and the same eyes. It was my friend Bernadette; she was with her husband and two sons. The last time we had seen each other we were in high school, and here we were with our families.

It was a marvelous coincidence, but I like to think that it was more, that some force knew—KNEW—that I needed a friend here, needed to make a connection with who I had been and to connect that with my future. Surely, surely Bernadette was the sign that would answer an as yet unrecognized need.

And guide she has truly become. We get together a few times a year; we have watched our children reach growth spurts. She also reconnected me with Carly, another friend from bygone synagogue days, who has become another born-again friend (and I graciously accept her emails of stunning photographs and raunchy cartoons). And she brought me into her life by bringing me into the book club that she and some friends had been mulling over. So that one right place at the right time has helped me to create a life here, and what more could someone want from coincidence / fate / happenstance?

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I’d love to hear the story of how you have reconnected with a lost friend.

Laura, www.RebelliousThoughtsofaWoman.com