Coincidence and Tears-An Introduction

Thursday of last week I saw this article and being involved in effort by this community-Lewisporte, NL to bring a family of Syrian refugees here I was immediately simultaneously overwhelmed by the vastness of the work to be done and more determined than ever to a tiny bit more.  The following Friday morning a meeting with our Member of Parliament Scott Simms and Stephanie McClellan, chair of the Lewisporte Refugee Outreach and donor of her basement apartment for housing we excitedly explained to him that we should hear in perhaps two weeks about our family.

So when a message from Stephanie popped up in my facebook "Are you there?" the last thing I expected to hear was "Ken has a family for us!"  I am not sure why but my response was to start crying. I'm not sure if I was crying for myself, for Stephanie who is so determined to aid these people or for the people who are coming. I replied, I expect a unanimous "YES" but Stephanie expressed the possibility that it might not be as to some special circumstances surrounding the family. I replied, well I'm a "YES" because I could no more say no to this family than if they were at my feet in freezing water reaching their hands towards me for help!

After a while the file with very basic information was sent that gave very little information. The profile gave us this information Father age 49 a painter, Mom age 39, Daughter Age 9, Son age 7. That was pretty much it except for the urgency rating which for this family was listed as "high" out of possible ratings of low, medium and high. I knew that this wasn't frivolous. High meant we needed to help them as soon as possible and I suspect our little town will be really good at that.

There was also another bit of information that jumped out at me.  The Profile is numbered. The File number for this particular family had a series of numbers, three in a row. They were 535.  Coincidentally that is the prefix for the Lewisporte Land line telephone numbers and the inspiration for the title of this blog.

How is it possible to already love this family? I know so little about who they are or what they like but still care so very deeply about OUR family. I think it's because a soul is a soul and can be connected with knowledge of all of the stuff that is wrapped around the soul.  Compassion isn't based upon what a person does or what their name is. Compassion is a feeling of intense caring for humanity without having  much knowledge of persons individually but simply because of the knowing that we are all the same no matter our individual story.

So perhaps it is a coincidence that I saw the story on Lebanon..where this family will come from..and that the file number is 535 like the telephone prefix for the town.  But I prefer to see it as a sign of something that is meant to be. Because coincidence and tears was the overwhelming theme of the moments that I first learned of our new family members and of the moment when I knew I loved them without reservation.