Just by Chance?

Believe in fate? How about intuition? I didn’t put much stock into that stuff either—that is, until I started getting clobbered with it back in Japan.

Nowadays, “coincidences” happen to me frequently, and I am mindful not to automatically write them off as chance occurrences.

Take, for instance, over a year ago, when I began scouting suitable housing options for my family, set to fly over from Japan not long after. I knew that my historic house in "the hood" just wouldn’t do. So one day, I ventured out to the suburbs in search of a practical alternative. Money was gonna be tight, so I needed something respectable but within reach financially.

A couple of years earlier, I recalled paying a visit to a newly arrived aerospace engineer from Brazil, who needed English lessons. I drove well outside the city limits to a newly minted subdivision some distance from the downtown Victorian where I stayed. As I searched for the address, I marveled at the rows and rows of regal, 2-story complexes, opulent lawns, and luscious palm trees uprooted from nearby Florida. The quietness of the block had my heading ringing like Big Ben. “Hmm..why didn’t I know about this place?” I wondered, "and how many banks did a brotha have to rob to get one of these cribs?!”

Although I engaged the client just that one time, I’ll never forget the distinctly impressionable housing that his company had provided for him.

Years later, I set out on a mission to find this neighbored once again, but I couldn't remember where I was going. I drove in the general vicinity of the engineer’s house, making a left turn here, a right turn there, but promptly found myself turned around. Although unable to pinpoint my exact destination, I was fortunate enough to stumble across similarly picturesque neighborhoods along the way.

One pillared community really impressed me. With its man-made lake, free-flowing fountains, and tip-toeing geese that crossed the road, I carefully drove onward, u-turning at each and every cul de sac, passing one brand new house after another, before getting lost one more time, frustrated by the two-toned, stucco house I kept seeing over and over again. There was a FOR SALE sign perched atop the lawn—much like many other signs I had seen that balmy afternoon.

“If only!” I said to myself, before making my escape down the road.
Eventually, I found my way out of the twisting, turning, rat-maze of the new subdivision and headed for home.

The following week a newcomer visited one of my downtown residences in search of a furnished room. Offering temporary housing to graduate students and business travelers had been my forte since returning from Japan. He was a young military officer of the clean-cut Caucasian variety. The young man was friendly and engaging and explained that he and his wife were splitting up so he needing short-term housing in leu of his upcoming deployment overseas. During the course of conversation, I mentioned that my wife and baby, too, were moving to Savannah from overseas, and that I was in search of accommodations myself. That was when he suggested I have a look at him and his wife’s new house which I did the following week.

The area looked familiar. I quickly found myself back in the neighborhood where I had haphazardly wandered. As I scoured the numbers on the passing properties, I exhaled and shook my head when I arrived at his home, quickly to realize that this was the same “if only” house that had demanded my attention the week before.

I kept my cool. There was no way I was in a position to purchase a freshly built 5BR house, nor could I even afford to pay the rental price of $ 2,000 a month.
“Can you do $ 1,500?” said the young man in the green and grey military fatigues.

“Mister. You’ve got yourself a deal!” I said.

A month later my family and I moved into the house and have lived here now for a year and a half. We couldn’t be happier--one reason I always keep my antenna attuned for chance occurrences such as this.

And just one more reason I believe in God.