I am not someone who believes in coincidence; I believe that many things happen because that's the way they're supposed to happen. The following story is a perfect example. I didn't post it at the time because I was keeping my father-in-law's illness out of my blog. He read my blog when he was alive and I didn't want him to have to face my thoughts about it.

I have a set of friends ("Bob" and "Ann", and now, their partners) that I've known for almost 20 years. They were my lifeline's when I was going through my divorce 15 years ago, and we've all been there for each other through things that life hands out. We don't see each other now more than once a year, because we are all just so busy. We keep in contact via email for the most part. They hadn't yet met BJ so we decided it was time. We started planning this dinner about four months ago, but had to keep canceling due to one circumstance or another. Finally the date was set for this past January 30th.

On the way to dinner I shared with BJ the fact that Bob lost his dad to emphysema on 12/26, just three weeks prior. I assured him that they knew nothing about his father, so this is not a topic that he needed to worry about talking about if he didn't want to.

We all got caught up and I asked Bob how he was doing after the loss of his dad. He shared the up's and down's and brought up Hospice and said how important it was that Hospice was there. He shared how it went at the end, and it was almost identical to BJ's dad. The family had NO idea how sick Bob's dad was until the very very end. Bob shared that he and his brother were holding their dad's hand when he passed on, and it was a really beautiful thing for them.

Ann, my other friend, then shared that her dad was just put into Hospice and shared the circumstances behind that. BJ put his hand on my knee and I knew right then, that this was going to be good for him.

To my surprise (because he's such a private person), BJ brought up his dad. He shared what had been happening, and my friends just listened. BJ asked questions of Bob because his story was so similar to what BJ was going through at that time. There were a few tears at the table that night, but surprisingly, the tears were tears of empathy from those listening to the stories of others. Not from the person telling their story.

On the way home, BJ kept saying how he couldn't get over the timing of all of this and how important it was to hear all of this. We'd planned this dinner before Bob's dad died, and certainly before BJ's dad got the prognosis. We didn't know anything about Ann and her dad. This was just the exact right time.

In addition to the sharing such personal emotional things, we laughed. We sometimes laughed so loud that people looked at us but we didn't care!

In the end, BJ told my friends that he felt that he'd made some really good friends, and they all said that they all now had a built in support system. They decided to call themselves the "Hospice club" and planned our next get together for April, and will be getting together bi-monthly from now on.

In this past month, BJ lost his dad and I got word today that Ann, the remaining member of the "Hospice club" lost her dad this weekend.

I have a feeling that the next time we get together, all of the dads will be 'with' us and laughing right along side of us. We may not hear that laughter, but it'll be there.