Interconnectedness...

   After I wrote the word out in the title of this post, I thought, "that is really one long word." But I should explain why I used it.

   The world is full of people. Somewhere in that crowd of faces is someone you may be connected with. It just takes a few questions, or comments, and that connection is made.

   We were at the funeral home yesterday afternoon. My wife's brother's wife had passed away, the rest of Mayre's family had already died in previous years, and this lady was the last one of that generation.

   Peggy, the recently deceased sister-in-law, had 4 children. The two boys had already died, and the two girls were there with us. One of the daughters had two sons, both of whom were in attendance. In talking with one of the boys (not really a boy..he was turning 40 shortly), he mentioned that he was about to get married.

   The girl had not gotten to the funeral home yet, so we asked him a little about her and how they met. He replied that she was from Canada, and was a master's student at the local university. Some other folks, who were mutual friends of both boy and girl, had suggested to each of them that they ought to meet. The rest is history.

   I'm not sure how all of this works in with the six degrees of separation theory, but here is the interesting part.

   When the girl arrived, we got to talking about where she was from and her life to this point. She mentioned that her father had been living in this city for some time, and that was how she got to that college. When she mentioned his name, we recognized it immediately as the name of a pilot Mayre knew from the small airport where she flew. It was the same man.

   Not only did we know her father, but Mayre had sold him an airplane she owned, and delivered it to him up in Ohio way back when. He also lived not far from us, and we had visited in his home before we moved farther south.

   All of a sudden we had that connection to a girl that we had not known even existed before that afternoon.

   And possibly even stranger was the fact of her employment. She worked for a local insurance company, and, just a few hours before, we had eaten lunch with a friend who also flew out of that local airport back when Mayre was there, but now was a pilot for that same insurance company.

   A small world.