The Astonishing Connection Between a Children’s Book, the Internet, an Off-Key Church Choir, Two Unacquainted Young People, and the Advancement of Legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives

Okay, you've heard them before:

Everything happens for a reason. 

You were meant to be there.

Such and such was meant to happen.

Do we really believe these things?  Or are they just a convenient way of summing up extraordinary coincidences without thinking about them too deeply?   Is there some Supreme, Organizing Force in the universe?  Or are our brains just a super-powerful storytelling machines that take raw data and arrange it into a compelling narrative?

These are big questions, and let me tell you up front: I don’t have the answer.  But it is something I’ve been thinking about lately.  Over the past few years since I began the project – and especially the past week - I’ve found myself at the convergence of some pretty astonishing events.  I’ve done some research, and thought some more.

I’d like to use this space to share my perspective with you and then, of course, you can decide for yourself. 

But first let me tell you a story.

I'm an Alzheimer’s Advocate.  After watching what happened to my grandfather – how it ravaged not only him but our entire family – I’ve made the decision to make a difference however I can.   This started with the SBYF Project, but has also grown into more direct, legislative advocacy as well. 

A month ago I visited the office of my local legislator, Congressman Patrick Meehan (PA – 7^th District). I’d never done this before.  The Congressman wasn’t there (overseas for duties related to his position on the Homeland Security Committee, I was told), but I did get to speak with a member of his health policy staff.  She was younger than I expected – early 20s, I guessed – and she led me into a small, empty conference room.  We sat across from one another and I thought: is this it?  This is democracy in action?  Two people with notepads, sitting on plastic wheely chairs in a dull, dim conference room?  She was incredibly nice.  She listened intently and made notes as I told her about two crucial pieces of legislation that I believed would help families struggling with Alzheimer’s disease.  Would she please pass that information along to the Congressman? 

She said she would.  That was her job. 

That only took about four minutes, so, unsure what else to do, I told her about my postcard project, how it was inspired by my grandfather, and how I hoped it would be a compelling narrative to create awareness…even amongst those who had no experience with the disease. I left behind a small stack of postcards. 

A month later I traveled to Washington D.C. as part of the Alzheimer’s Association’s National Advocacy Forum.  It’s a great event.  Basically, advocates from all over America gather in Washington for a few days to convene, share their stories, and learn about how they can do more.  The event culminates with a “Day on the Hill” in which all the advocates bus to Capitol Hill together and disperse to meet with their local representatives/their staffs. 

I had two meetings.  The first was with Chaka Fattah (PA – 2^nd District).   I was joined by Chris Gruber, whose father has Alzheimer’s, and Laura Putman, who works for the Delaware Valley chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.  Both of them had gotten up at 4:00 am to ride a bus down in time for the meeting. 

The Congressman welcomed us into his office and shook our hands.  Unlike the previous office I’d been in, this one was bright and colorful; the carpet was as plush and soft as turf; photographs and district maps hung on the walls.

A member of his staff joined us; she sat at the corner of his desk with a yellow legal pad.  He sat in a regal leather chair and crossed his legs.   We sat on the couch.

“What can I do for you?" he asked. 

I asked him if anyone in his family had Alzheimer’s Disease. 

“Fortunately not.”

I told him about our legislative asks, how they were crucial for the 5.4 million families struggling with Alzheimer’s across America, and the near 400,000 with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia in PA alone. 

“That’s a Senate Bill, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, but there is also a version in the House.”

“Oh, right.  I think I already signed that.”

“Respectfully, sir…no, you didn’t.  But we’re hoping you will.”

He turned to his staffer.  “We haven’t co-signed this bill?”

She picked up the phone, clicked the plastic buttons, and whispered with whoever was on the other end for a few seconds.

“No, Congressman, we have not co-signed.”

“Well, now we have."

*

A few hours later we had a meeting with Congressman Meehan’s D.C. office (every congressman has both a local and D.C. office).  This time Chris and Laura and I were joined by A.J., an advocate from Broomall, Walter, from Landsdale, and Keely, from Media…all within the 7^th District. They too had gotten up at 4am to ride the bus. 

Again, Representative Meehan was unavailable, but we did get to meet with his key health staffer.  As we waited in the reception area, reviewing our documents and colorful, bar graph leave-behinds, another member of his staff (a young woman in her mid-20s) stuck her head out the door.

“Matthew?”

“Yes?”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, “but I knew your grandfather.”

“You…did?”

“He sang in the church choir with my grandfather at St. John Neumann.  They were good friends.  I remember when he got the disease.  Every week after Mass we were introduced to him, like we’d never met.  After the diagnosis, he told my grandfather that he was struggling with this, but he didn’t want any special treatment.  He was aware of it and he wanted things to go on as normally as possible.”

“But how…?”

The health staffer came in and our meeting began.  Not thirty seconds into “the pitch” she interrupted and said that the Congressman had agreed to co-sign not only the legislation we’d come asking for, but another Alzheimer’s bill that I had presented to the home office the month before.  We erupted in applause.  She said the Congressman was happy to do it.  There are so many bills, she said, sometimes they didn’t even know such bills existed.  “Thank you for letting us know,” she said. 

After the meeting, I exchanged business cards with the other young staffer, the one who’d said she’d known my grandfather.  “But how did you figure that out?” I asked, still amazed.

“Oh, I do the scheduling and I saw your name.  I googled you and found your project, read your storybook…and realized I actually knew your grandfather!  I passed it along to my friends…and other staffers, too.”

This is the short version.  There’s so much more that I don’t have the time to cram into a blog post.  But it’s pretty wild, isn’t it?   

So this returns us to our original question.

Everything happens for a reason. 

You were meant to be there.

Such and such was meant to happen.

What do we make of this? 

Here’s what I think: I think maybe there is a greater power in the universe, but it’s not like you read about in The Alchemist…it’s not some crackpot, New Age-y force that is “conspiring” to make our dreams come true if only we’ll do our part and submit to our destiny.

I’m uncomfortable with this way of thinking because it suggests a kind of passivity. 

We’ll be put where we’re supposed to be?

See what I mean?

No, I reject this.  What I believe is that all of us already are connected; we’re characters in the same story.  Only it’s a huge, very long story and all the characters don’t know one another (yet).  Sometimes we intersect, and our brain is a super-powered storytelling machine that can weave these narrative threads together.  Every one of these meetings is a tiny miracle. 

This is something I’ve been thinking about ever since my first trip across the continent, passing out postcards.  That first trip I met 3,000 strangers in 30 days.  I met so many amazing people—like the Oldest Man on Earth—and it was all so random…that maybe it wasn’t random.  I began thinking about fate.  Was I meant to intersect with that person at that time at that public park in Casper, Wyoming?  How amazing that the librarian in El Paso’s grandfather also had Alzheimer’s. 

Recently I worked with a friend of mine to build a "Fate Calculator" (TM) which estimates to the millionth of a percent what are the odds of intersecting with another human being in any one of the 405 metropolitan areas in the United States.  It’s still in development…but it works. 

As you might guess, in a continent of 307 million people, the odds of stranger intersection are astonishingly small.  You need a microscope to see them.  Though you can map human networks—and the recent explosion of social media has helped us visually conceive of these human networks like never before—still, in the moment, on that street corner in Budapest when you intersect on a street corner with a kid you drove to high school (this happened), or in that Congressman’s office when you realize the staffer knew your grandfather…you can’t help but be overwhelmed. 

Fate or coincidence?

Which is it?

Visual Map of a Human Social Network

You know what I say?

Let’s not give these moments away. 

Let’s not cede them to Fate. 

Instead, we might think of them as the revelation of connections that were there all along, waiting to be found…and that were revealed, by you, because you got up off your ass and set up a legislative meeting.  Because you talked to a stranger on the train.  Because you made the effort: to see, to speak, to think, to engage, to connect...not coincidentally, the very things that make us human.  

When you begin to think of connectivity this way - as an active pursuit - a new set of better, more productive questions replaces the vague, un-answerable ones.   Who might I meet today?  What is that person’s story?  Where are they going?  Where have they been?  How might we be connected?  How can we help one another?

And even if this connectivity is ultimately controlled by some Greater, Unifying Power—and I’m not saying it isn’t—then it seems to me there is no greater homage to that Power (whatever you choose to call it) than to seek and celebrate these human connections - or tiny miracles - every day.

What a wonderful way to be pious.

To visit your congressman.

To mail a postcard.

To say hello to your neighbor.  

Read the storybook

Have you had one of these extraordinary, surprising, unlikely moments of connectivity?  What do you think?  Share your thoughts/memory in the comments.