Serendipity

Serendipity.

just finished reading Mitch Albom's For One More Day. it's about one "ordinary" day anyone might yearn for to make good with and/or seek forgiveness from a "lost" loved one.

i learned about the book while reading someone's blog last week.

soon after i tried to get a copy on Amazon but put it off thinking it was just another unnecessary expense.

the one i just read was borrowed from the local library yesterday after i accompanied my niece to return and borrow some books. take note - i wasn't thinking about borrowing the book. i just found it while browsing while i was waiting for my niece.

this past saturday's local paper, the Austin American-Statesman, carried an article in its Life and Arts section about an austin-based writer named Edmund "Bud" Shrake.

in it, the article's writer (Patrick Beach), started his piece by mentioning Mr. Shrake's mystical experience which occurred in September 2001. he had surgery on a cancerous tumor in a kidney. after getting medication for his pain, he had what he calls an "after-life experience".

he woke up in intensive care. one of his visitors, a former nurse, found him "dead" and revived him with cpr. he was told that he was "dead" for several minutes.

during the time he was out, Mr. Shrake remembers realizing he had a soul. he found out that life is the gasoline that runs y/our engine and death is right there, just like your elbow. he also realized that the universe is made of bits of information and that the universe is no fluke.

Mr. Albom's book is about death and dying too. and on an ordinary saturday afternoon i just happen to read about the subject from two unrelated sources: one factual and one supposedly fictional.

what strikes me most out of these recent readings is what the other author (Mr. Shrake) had to say about the universe being made up of bits of information.

Serendipity.

makes me wonder less about why i blog or why i read other people's blogs.