Maybe there really is no such thing as coincideNCE

​I heard a speaker recently say he's a bigger believer in clue-incidences than in coincidences. It was the whole everything happens for a reason idea, and that coincidences are simply clues to the reasons.

I feel like I experienced a clue-incidence this week.

On Wednesday, I was setting up for a presentation in a high school classroom. I quickly realized it was a journalism classroom. Given my love for writing, something felt very calming about that.

As I was preparing, I noticed cards and notes pinned to the corner walls surrounding the teacher's desk. There were hundreds of them. I started reading them and surmised these were all notes of gratitude from students to the teacher whose desk I had taken over.

I kept reading and reading and reading. I couldn't stop. The notes had dates on them from as far back as 2011. I found myself feeling emotional at just how much and for how long this teacher had impacted these students' lives.

They talked about her passion. Her belief in them. Her commitment. Her being there for them when things got tough in and outside of the classroom. They talked about how she had influenced their career choice; how she helped them discover gifts they didn't know they had.

As I was reading, it wasn't lost on me that I was going to be in this classroom for two days talking to educators about the undeniable connection between human relationship and human learning.

Maybe I shouldn't present at all, I thought, and simply have them spend an hour reading this teacher's notes. The notes were a master class on the power of human connection.

On Thursday, day two of my presentations, I was setting up again. A woman popped her head out of a closet in the back of the classroom. She apologized for being there and told me she'd be out of my way soon.

I asked, wait, is this your classroom?

She said yes.

I told her about reading her notes and apologized if that was being a bit intrusive.

She assured me it wasn't but apologized herself for being a bit of a hoarder. I just can't let go of anything they give me.

I told her what I was doing there. What I was presenting on. And that those notes she was hoarding were perfect testimonies, evidence if you will, to support everything I'd be teaching in her class that day.

Isn't it interesting, I observed to her, that the students she taught were in many ways going to be teachers through those notes she'd been hoarding. I know that was certainly true for me.

I told her I hoped she understood as deeply as I hoped she would that those notes were precious gifts. All of them acknowledging that she had given the givers one of the most precious gifts a young person can receive at one of the most vulnerable times of their lives.

The gift of human connection. Human belief. Human acceptance. Human love.

You have shaped their lives, I told her, in ways you'll never fully get to know. But every one of those notes is a once upon a time in stories that will one day end with your writing weaved all throughout them.

How appropriate for a journalism teacher, right?

My guess is she's always kept those notes for reasons much deeper than hoarding. I hope our conversation deepened the hope and strength she finds in those reasons.

Maybe that's one of the reasons our paths crossed the way they did.

All I know is our paths crossing was no coincidence.

It was totally clue-incidence.