This article is actually about an unexpected encounter. Despite this, the episode of the Hobbit series An Unexpected Journey popped up. Actually, I am on a journey, and what happened to me on Monday is a very important point in my spiritual journey. So here is its place on the blog.
My younger daughter is graduating tomorrow. Her graduation ceremony was last Wednesday. She goes to a Reformed high school, and the graduation ceremony was held in the church. Due to the relatively small capacity of the church, the number of people allowed in and invited was limited. We needed a ticket to be there. So I went to my daughter’s house on Monday so she could give me the tickets.
As usual, we met on the street, because I am not a guest in their home. We haven’t spoken to her mother for years, and maybe I am the only reason for this now. Maybe she would start talking to me? Maybe we just need a first step towards each other? Such questions usually end up with a simple answer or no answer at all.
Our conversation with my daughter ended strangely: after a while, she suddenly and a little confusedly said that she was going upstairs now, and I suddenly didn’t understand what was the reason for this. What caused her confusion? After she said goodbye and went upstairs, I turned around and saw that my ex-wife was parking her car. I thought that maybe now would be the time to find out where we were in our lives: how open we were to each other. So, setting aside my habit of meeting on the street, I didn’t get in my car and leave the scene, but waited.
I knew that a long-term relationship had ended a month ago, and when I found out, I felt sincere regret. We asked each other “how are you?” almost at the same time. A few minutes later, she said that she was glad that I had waited and that we could finally put aside our sulking. I felt the same way.
We talked for almost an hour, first just standing between the cars, then sitting on a bench. We talked about a lot of things, and these are probably not topics for a blog post. What makes me feel like this unexpected meeting is an important stop on my spiritual journey are the two aspects of this afternoon.
On the one hand, it’s good that we both got to the point where we were able to talk after all this time, to ask each other honestly and answer without fear. It was good that we were both able to give each other self-reflective thoughts about our own responsibility. This was an important human point, I feel, for both of us.
On the other hand, our children came up. My ex-wife brought up the issue of hoping that we had done things right in raising our children. I told her that I think it’s enough to look at them and know the answer. Both of our daughters have become people that we are both very proud of. They became good people. And she pointed out that both of our children have good relationships with both of their parents. So we said with a smile that we could agree that – even if we didn’t always do everything right with them – we did our parenting duties well.
I’ve had countless uplifting and great experiences in the past few months. There’s no ranking among happy moments, but this experience would definitely be on the podium.
We met again on Wednesday at graduation. I met my ex-father-in-law and his partner, my ex-sister-in-law and her family. It felt really good that everyone put aside old grievances and we talked a little. These two afternoons contributed a lot to my peace. This week was an important stage in the flow of the past few months.
Finally – I think, as a natural progression of what I’ve been through in the past few months – I called my ex-wife aside. I just told him I was grateful we talked on Monday. I was confused, and I guess she was too. She thanked me and said, “Everything will be fine, just chill!”
I’m trying! I’m trying to translate that to myself these days, to live every moment…