Yesterday it was my job to set up an appointment with the bank for 4:05, which would give my husband 5 minutes to get there after his work, and I did this early in the morning with a nice voice on the phone.
He arrives at the bank and the door is locked, he goes back to his work, and calls home. (He doesn’t carry a cell phone) I am not home, and my son knows nothing about this appointment has little to offer, so my husband leaves work again and heads home. (Nor does he know my cell number, it is not a secret from him, he just never calls me on it! No need!)
Earlier when I am coming from my work, I call home and have a daughter meet me with her car at the school. We leave my car for another daughter to get home, and we then proceed to town to hook up with my husband at the bank.
When we arrive at the bank, we do not see my husband’s car. I tell my driver to wait and not to leave until I say so, that I will go in and see what is up.
I get to the door, it is locked, and so are the two doors near by, but to my right on a wall is a doorbell with a sign, “ring after hours!”
I ring the bell, and a woman comes and shows me the way to my appointment’s office. I am arriving 10 minutes late, but that is ok, for my husband was to be there five minutes ago.
We proceed with our meeting, except I have very little of the information needed, and I am not certain where my husband is, so we can almost complete the deal. Meanwhile, my driver is impatiently waiting, and I have a limited speaking seller lady also waiting.
I find this simply too amusing to handle.
When the time approaches for the real closing of the bank, I leave with our business partially done, and with a parting word to our banker that we will try this again tomorrow if it is ok with her, same time, same place, same business, but with my missing husband!
I then have to tell my seller who can’t really understand English, that we have to wait one more day, that we do want the car, but not today, that I did go to the bank, but no money today, my husband didn’t arrive, but we will be there tomorrow, same time, same place, with the money. She says “no car?” I say, “Yes Car, but no money”, and I think she repeats “no car”….I suppose now all she hears is that we still want the car, but with no money!
So between my husband who heads home at the first locked door, and my limited speaking lady, to my driver who interrupted her life for me, to the banker with partial information, I felt I was in a world where they were just one step away from completion, so close by yet so far away.
And to think we all get to do this again tonight, with a few changes. I have another daughter who will tolerate a trip town, but no side trips, just a quick drop off, and a husband who will now look for a doorbell, and a banker who will be waiting for him, and a trusting lady watching for us in hopes she really did make a sale.
I will again watch and see how this all works out.
It is just amazing that one small thing can turn everything around. If Paul would have just rung the bell, all of this would have flowed smoothly, but it never occurred to him that business was going on behind a locked door!
Or he could have called my cell phone, but he wasn’t really thinking of me in the bank meeting, just being the driver to get the car home, and without the money, no need for me!
Just one thing short, that is all it takes, one thing can affect the lives of others.
Interesting to see the ‘chain of events’ how we are all connected, how our actions affect others, how if we miss one step, there is a domino affect around us.
We did complete things to the best of our abilities, but the outcome was certainly different, it was incomplete!
I guess when all things work out we are not even aware of all the steps each had to take to make it so, it is just when one misses a step, that we notice.
One missed step changes the beat of our lives, changes the song of the day, a bank deal was never completed, a sale not made, a mail car not purchased, all because one locked door or a sign not read.
My daughter called a short while ago, while I was talking to my brother, this blog unfinished, and she says, “I think the car you thought you were buying is for sale again, it has a sign on it and near the road.”
So, after my call with my brother, I call her again.
And I say to her, “Do you have your car for sale again?” “Yes,” she says, “You not buy, you not come last night.”
I laugh and say to her, “yes you are right, we not buy, we not come, but we still want to buy and we will come tonight!”
“I put in parking lot, you come tonight, yes, with money,” she says? A question with a kinda sorta believing voice.
I understand so well, I am kinda sorta believing it myself!
I love love love that she just put it back on the market! She wasn’t waiting until we got our stuff together she had a car to sell!
I told her, “If you want, you keep it for sale, if it is still there when we get there good, if you sell today, good for you!”
She says, “I wait.”
I love how she is doing her world well, she is not sitting around lamenting no sale, she is running right back in the game!
I love how we too believe that we can get a re-run at this car, that we will all go back and try again, who really knows until that exact moment what will happen.
I love the unknowing, the excitement of wondering will we all take the proper steps to complete this deal!
What we know for sure is looking backwards at ‘what happened,’ instead of looking ahead and believing all will happen as we plan!
It is almost funny to think we can think it all will! That no one will take a misstep! Like we are the master choreographers of life!
Instead we step our steps to the best of our abilities and do what we do from where we stand, and not a bit more.
I love to watch how people move and why.
Isn’t it wild that my husband and I both approach the same door and have different outcomes?
I love how I wasn’t able to articulate to her or even myself how it was that our plan fell through, that she just heard no money no car and she was perfectly right. No Money, No car!
Each simple little act or non-action has a consequence no action happens alone. We are all connected in this dance called life.
Interwoven in the tapestry of each other.