When I first started my blog about 18 months ago it was mainly to save my friends from plopping off the edge of a cliff with boredom and exhaustion, having listened to me agonise about my trauma for far too long. I had also hoped to meet a few new cyber friends in far-flung places.
What I wasn’t expecting was a small miracle.
About 8 months ago I received a comment from a reader in Tanzania. She had been ill in bed and because she had absolutely nothing better to do with her time she read my whole blog. Since then we have become cyber mates (the internet equivalent to soul mates) and I love, love, love her blog and reading about her extraordinary life in a pink house on a hill in Africa. She writes from the heart and all her posts are fascinating.
For many years now my father has been trying to track down anyone who might have known his father, my grandfather, during his time in Africa. My grandfather died from a gunshot wound to the head in relatively suspicious circumstances. The cause of death was given as suicide but it has always been a bit of an unsolved mystery. The other day I asked Janelle to ask her father if he knew a way of contacting anybody who might have remembered my grandfather from a million years ago. She said she’d email her aunt who knew everybody. My father recognised her aunt’s surname and asked if she was related to a great friend of his mother’s. “Yes, he was my father” was her reply. My father has a photograph of my grandmother and her father on a boat in their swimsuits in Africa over 60 years ago. He also has photos of her father at my grandmother’s wedding.
She has subsequently mentioned a few other people that my father spent a lot of time with in his youth.
IS THAT NOT REALLY FREAKY????
My mother doesn’t think so. She is a great believer in fate and thinks it is meant to be – part of life’s rich tapestry. But how does life’s rich tapestry somehow attach a girl in a little pink house in Tanzania (by a random press of a button) to a girl in London who’s lives many sepia years ago were inextricably linked? I’M FREAKED OUT.
Anyway, on that basis, I announce that my first nomination for the following award goes to the wonderful Janelle. You must check out her blog if you haven’t already, it’s called Ngorobob House. Thank you for everything xxx
Kitty
October 6, 2008I love it when life does stuff like that! So cool! x
Abdul Sami
October 6, 2008aah.. the miracle of the internet… has happened so many times with me that it sounds so normal to me…
not that it is not amazin… it still is… you can jus sit n marvel at these things…
your father mus really lov u right now 🙂 !
Janelle
October 6, 2008ah lulu!! THANKS!!!! yeah it is extraordinary…wow. life really is incredible hey? and now we come to same old same old..how do i get award onto blog? please email it to me…i will do it the long way around! HAH! XXX j
Bush Mummy
October 6, 2008Hello just discovered your blog, read this post and am flabbergasted.. and now hooked.
What a great story! I do believe in these small world experiences as they just seem to happen all too often but your story tops the list!
Great blog.
Bush Mummy x
Berthddu Suit
October 6, 2008Wow! That is pretty freaky but just goes to show how small this wonderful world really is! That’s quite a story.
ciara
October 6, 2008isn’t it amazing how you can connect to anyone anywhere through the internet? lots say it can’t be done, but look at the friendship you and janelle have w your family knowing each other in the past. very cool stuff!
i think even though the internet can be cold and unfeeling (what most say anyways), i know that i have met some cool people who i’ve enjoyed getting to know through it. i met my husband this way. all there is left to do is have a wonderful story like this one to tell. 🙂
Fat, frumpy and fifty...
October 6, 2008bloody amazing..l love to hear about events like that!! l’m kinda like with your ma on this one in as much at I do believe we can only make small steps and choices within the master plan. I think we have little control, but the small choices we make can alter or change the path but the destination is the same…does that make sense.?
l’m off to visit the pink house on an african hill..what a picture that evokes!
Fat, frumpy and fifty...
October 6, 2008I hope yu dont mind lve nominated yu forpost of the day…over at David’s- authorblog
not sure if you know him, but his posts, images, rhymes and words of wisdom are so generous and thoughtful..I cant get through the day without visiting him, several times….
he regularly, bigs up bloggers with great posts and recommends them on his blog…
here he is
http://david-mcmahon.blogspot.com/
Potty Mummy
October 6, 2008Oh, Ngorobob Hill House is a great blog. As is yours (fawn, fawn…). As for the children (on your next post up), they’re right of course. We must all be barking mad.
family affairs
October 6, 2008Thank you everyone for your comments and to you FFF for proposing me for post of the day! Lx
DMM
October 6, 2008I think that is amazing you found someone half way around the world through your blog. Life is amazing with its ways…