My dad had surgery this morning. I know he wanted me to be there with him. But, my son asked me first to take care of him because he’s having shoulder surgery. So. I’m leaving to take care of my son. My dad joked that I could come to Palm Desert to take him to surgery and from there fly to San Francisco to take my son to his surgery.

I feel badly that I couldn’t be there for my dad. But I called two of my close friends that he knows who are available for anything he needs in the next few weeks. Plus his neighbor agreed to take him to and from surgery. He said it’s a minor procedure on one finger.

This is where the coincidence happened. I got a text from a fellow mom from my kids’ elementary school days. She said “He’s doing great!” She texted me a photo of a note she wrote to my dad, “Tell Elizabeth hil!”

I felt so reassured! So comforted to know that a good friend who was a nurse was taking care of my dad when I couldn’t be there.

The same thing happened when my husband had shoulder surgery. She was the assigned nurse. When my husband opened his eyes post surgery, he said “What are you doing here?” She had come into the waiting room to reassure me everything had gone well before she led me into the post op room to see my husband.

This has happened more than once. When my dad had surgery on his ankle, I was allowed in the pre-op area. Another good friend, a fellow swim mom who is a devout Christian, was his nurse. She knew my dad from the pool deck, where he was a proud grandfather at all of our kids’ meets.

Then when my son fell off his bike his freshman year of college, he had to come home for surgery. I was so nervous. The anesthesiologist walked in and was a husband of a good friend. Our son had tutored their daughter in high school for math. He said, “I saw his name on the list of incoming patients, so I asked to take his case.”

What do you think? Are these coincidences or is something else at work?