Unlikely Alliances

It’s always wise to treat everybody well.

Asserting dominance over the juniors at school and treating those in the B stream like they haven’t made the grade could go badly if you end up working for them one day. Some connections make perfect sense, but often time spins a web of surprising attachments.

Think of Aesop’s fable with the lion and the mouse and one good turn deserving another. Two creatures who would never normally interact are, unexpectedly, in positions where one can show mercy and later be rescued because of it. We just don’t know how the wind is going to blow.

Twelve years ago a group of moms began to meet regularly for one reason: a book study. We didn’t look the same, live on the same side of town or even know one another very well. More than a decade later we find ourselves linked with invisible threads. The seasons have come and gone and we don’t even see one another much these days, but a common cause brought us together and now we say we belong and we can’t even remember all the reasons why.

One member of our family was born on the same day as the queen and another shares a birthday with a princess. A friend’s child was born on Nelson Mandela’s birthday. The fact we even talk about it shows that this little fact joins people in a special way. One of our daughters shares a birthday with a friend’s daughter who is much older than her. Age means nothing as the two of them discuss how they will celebrate their special day and how they are working on one another’s presents.

In Anne of Avonlea (written by L.M Montgomery), chapter 21, youthful Anne meets old maid Miss Lavender quite by chance. Anne lives with her head in the clouds much of the time and when she catches this complete stranger behaving in a similar fashion one can just “see” her eyes shining as she exclaims joyfully, “Oh, do you imagine things too?” A kindred spirit right there. A sense of camaraderie formed in an instant, as recognition strikes like a match.

I know of two boys who love flying drones. One is nearly a man and owns a drone and one is a small boy who pretends he has one. The two of them stand out on the lawn and watch the sky together. They share a common interest and have an unspoken agreement that they speak the same language.

Divides of every shape and form crumble when the mystery of brotherhoods, kinship and bosom buddies unfold.

It could be that your son falls in love with someone from another country. Suddenly, you find yourselves connected to a whole ‘nother family. There is, apparently, room in your heart for people you didn’t know existed until now. Even as tender love sends down roots, fragile shoots of family togetherness branch out and intertwine.

It’s complicated, terrifying and exquisite.