What did it mean?

Today I worked the tolls... it isn't often I have people come through my lane who I knw from my hometown... but today that is just what happened... A vehicle pulled up and I took the person's money as I looked up and it hit me... that I knew that person.. I said to her, "I know you, you are from my hometown." She looked at me, a bit puzzled.. and then I said her name, Connie... Then she said.. oh yes.. you are that girl from the mill... yup.. I worked with her at the papermill where I spent my college summers. The first summer I was there I worked with her and her crew most of the time. She took me under her wing, showing me the ropes and also making sure I knew which guys at the mill were good guys versus those who I should be wary of... She is such a sweet heart.

The second summer I worked there was a very difficult summer... I have shared some of it here before... it was a summer that made me question God more than I had in my life up to that point. The first night I worked at the mill that second summer, a man left in the middle of his shift because he was not feeling well and dropped dead in the parking lot on his way to his car... a 28 year old newlywed/coworker was killed in one of the paper machines while I was working... when driving around town in the middle of the night, my friends and I came upon a woman in the local cemetery who was covered with blood, having tried to kill herself...... and then there was Connie. I learned, not long after having returned to work there, that Connie was sick... she was described by her doctors as 'being right full of cancer,' and her diagnosis was terminal.

I remember being upset at the time, thinking about her and knowing that she was going to suffer... of course at that point in my life my knowledge was hypothetical... She was hospitalized and was told there was nothing doctors could do for her... then, some time later, maybe a year or two, the doctors, surprised that she was still alive, conducted more tests and the cancer was gone. GONE. There was no sign of it on any of the tests... Crazy, right? Maybe some people would say that maybe she never had cancer... maybe... but the scans showed images of cancer... and cancer or not... her body was filled with stuff that should not have been there... and it just disappeared...

I have not heard anything about Connie since my years at the mill, but she was a person whose personality, so warm, so caring, really impacted me. I remember she had been married to a man who was her polar opposite, a complete and total... jerk.. in every sense of the word. When I knew her, she was in the process of leaving/divorcing him and I remember being in awe of her strength because she was quite a bit older than I was and people in her generation didn't often get divorced... but I was glad she was standing up for herself.

Today when I saw her, looking so fabulous, alive, healthy... it really hit me... When I gave her change back to her, we kind of held onto each other's hand for a moment. I just looked at her... and this huge wave of emotion came over me as we said our good byes and she drove away... I think it was relief.. that she was alive... alive and doing well... she had been down here attending a graduation of one of her grandchildren... not only did she survive... she is living... and that made me so incredibly happy.

Then of course, being me... I thought about that meeting.... what are the chances that she would come through my lane, on a day I was working, when I was not on a break... when she could have chosen another lane? Why did our paths cross like that? And believe it or not, it didn't take me long to just let that go, not try to figure it out, and just be pleased that it happened...