The craziest, most random, most wonderful thing happened yesterday. Out of the blue, and from a different continent, I was contacted by a woman who said she was a student in my father’s 6th grade class at St. Francis of Assisi in Mt. Kisco, NY. She went on to say that her sister found the article My Father And The Nuns that I had written and she posted it on Facebook. And got a big reaction from her classmates. I was floored.
It was presented by her as the “back story” as to how my father, Col. Harvey, had become the first lay teacher at this school upon retiring from the USAF.
But for me it was just the story.
And this story I am telling here has become the “front story.” It turned into the longest post thread in Facebook history (okay I’m exaggerating but the thread is loooooooong), filled with shared memories, stories about my dad, discussions about which nuns were mean and which were nice and what people are now doing. I am so grateful to be speaking with these former students of my father, who I knew from Church as well.
But my big question was……how did they find my post? I didn’t think that we had any shared Facebook friends. So I messaged the sister and get this, WordPress peeps…. prepare for total randomness….this sibling, using Safari, searched for the Goody Shoppe (a local hangout and I probably spelled it wrong) and saw St. Francis Church in the background. So then, she decided to search for St. Francis Church and one of the top search results was my article My Father And The Nuns.
So I reconnected with people I knew from my past, people who knew my father, people who gave me a different perspective on my father, and all because I tagged my blog article with the tag St. Francis of Assisi, Mt. Kisco, NY. Fellow bloggers, you can’t underestimate the importance of tags.
And yes, this photo has shown up an inordinate amount of times on my blog. Just sayin’.
The completely waaay strange, gives-me-goosebumps part of this whole thing, is the sense that all of the above happened as a message from “above.” Because yesterday, the day all of this transpired, was the 10th anniversary of my father’s passing.
saneteachers 
This is the truly great thing about blogs–they let you get in touch with all kinds of interesting people all over the world. What an amazing story.
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It’s really a story about a story about a story.
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The best stories usually are. 😉
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That is so cool, and how poignant that it fell on that day. Thank you for the reminder about tags. I often don’t think too much about them.
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Another one of those confluence of events….
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People are more interconnected more than we can imagine. Basically the point of my own blog, as you know.
“Intersections can reroute our destinies forever.” On crossingpaths.net
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As you know, I agree with you completely. My husband and I had a conversation about just that, last night.
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How crazily great!!!!!
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Yes it is. To be connected to people I knew, and people I sort of knew. Mostly to get a wonderful reminder of my father, with whom not all memories are wonderful.
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See, social media can be a great thing!!!!
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Absolutely!
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How wonderful.
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Truly.
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How wonderful!
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This is way cool.
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Waaaaaay cool.
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That’s wonderful! I love it.
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Me too ❤
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I know we put our blogs out on the internet where anyone can read them, but the way you connected with your old friends, and with your father’s former students is amazing! And sort of meant to be? I guess I need to pay a lot more attention to tags in the future!
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Yes, I think meant to be. My blog articles are posted on Facebook and Twitter (as I’m sure yours are) and I’ve gotten some followers from Facebook whom I had become fb friends through games when I first joined fb. So those are not personal friends but have become readers with whom I have had conversations as we have here. And I have had tags mean something when I write about the Kichwa culture and language. But this went way beyond that. It blew me away. And I hope that these connections and re-connections last.
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Wow! How random crazy is that! The story, the tags and your dad’s 10th anniversary of passing. It’s wonderful, Barb! Your late dad would be smiling down on this. 😊
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I agree and thank you. My question, really just for myself, is that if this was orchestrated by some divine hand, or just a coincidental confluence of events?
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Maybe a bit of both? If you are a firm believer in divinity, then I suppose you’d bend towards that. To some, it’s God’s will. For the practicals, it all started because you did your tagging right! 😀 And perhaps if you did not do that, I’m then wondering where/when would the divine intervention comes in. If any at all!
It’s always interesting!!! 😀
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Proof once again that God works in mysterious ways!
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I agree!
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Sounds like his was of reaching out to you. Beautiful.
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I agree! It was kind of creepy, yet something I needed to participate in, if that makes sense.
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So amazing! Another example of you just never know who will read the words you write.
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Yes, that was Barb’s blog featuring Dad.
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What a wonderful story and a great day to commemorate the memory of your dad. I like to think God gives us little blessing like this. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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Thank you so much for reading and commenting here.
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