Right Place, Right Time

I experienced one of the more bizarre serendipitous occurrences of my life last Friday. Let me set it up for you:

I flew to Orlando on Thursday to play the piano for the wedding of two of my high school friends who were being married Friday morning. These two had found each other, again, at our 40th reunion and miraculously fallen in love. (Yes, I'm envious.) As I sat on the piano bench during the reception, eyeing the room, I started recognizing people I knew. One happened to be a good friend of my brother's; he is the older brother of a good friend of mine, whom we'll call Jae. I went over to make sure he knew my brother was in the hospital, and he told me Jae was in the same hospital, having had surgery two days earlier. I told him I was going to the hospital after the reception, and would stop in to see her.

This is a two-pronged story. The other prong, which is historical, is that a girl in Atlanta who was practically my sister—the daughter of my mother's best friend—when we were growing up had met a man online four years ago. We'll call him Sly Sergeswimmer. She was swept off her feet by Sly, married him soon after meeting him, and had been taken to the cleaners, financially, by him. She divorced him two years later, to the great relief of everyone who knew her, including every member of my family.

Back to the first prong of the story: I found Jae's hospital room, she recognized me instantly, and we sat for ten minutes or so and caught up with each other. We are both widowed, having lost our good husbands to prostate cancer too early in their lives. This has been a strong bond between us over the past ten years, and we tend to look out for each other. We sat, sharing how lonely we are, and how hard it is to find a good man with whom we want to risk sharing our lives for the rest of our lives.

She said, "Actually, I've met someone. He's here visiting me now from Arkansas and is helping me a lot. He wants to help take care of me. He's here right now; he just went down to the cafeteria to get some lunch."

As we chatted, I heard the hospital room door open, and turned to see a man walking into the room. I extended my hand and said, "Hi, I'm Jan Crews." He responded with, "I'm Sly Sergeswimmer." Now really, could there be two people in the world with the same name?

He had never met me before, but had met both my brothers and my sister-in-law. I had never met him, but could never have forgotten that name. I felt like I had seen a ghost. I couldn't catch my breath. I felt like I had been punched in the gut with a very big fist.

As quickly as I could, I made my excuses to Jae and left the room. I was literally shaking. I went straight up to my brother's hospital room, said hello to him, then told him the story. He was horrified. An hour later my other brother and sister-in-law arrived from Tampa, and I immediately told them the story. We were all just astonished that this awful, people-using, gold-digging man had found Jae, my friend, after wreaking havoc on the life of our other friend. We discussed what to do; I called my old friend in Atlanta to discuss the situation with her; and I had my brother give me Jae's brother's phone number.

For the rest of the weekend, the situation was at the front of my conscious mind. I called another lifelong friend in California who knew the whole story and knew both women. I steeled myself to overcome my fear of confrontation.

Then, Sunday afternoon as I waited at the Orlando airport for my plane back to Pittsburgh, I called Jae's brother and had a long talk with his wife. I said, "I met Sly, and I have serious concerns." She immediately said, "Oh, thank heavens. We're so worried about this situation." I then proceeded to tell her everything I knew about Sly's history. I gave her phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all the interested parties, and finished the conversation knowing I had done the right thing.

Yesterday I received a phone call from Jae. She wanted to know everything I knew, and shared with me the facts she thought she knew. She said many things hadn't felt quite right about Sly, but that there was nothing solid for her to use as a reason for not continuing in a relationship with him. But after hearing the story I told her, she thanked me for having the courage to come forward.

I always believe things work together by some overarching plan—you can call it what you want: divine planning or God or the universe or nature. Everything in my life, in retrospect, has worked together for a reason of sorts. The whole time I was flying down to Orlando, I kept wondering why I was going. Once I saw Jae and met Sly and realized I could be the catalyst to save a 60yo woman's financial and emotional life, I felt the trip was justified.

Another positive outcome: my resolve to never go back to online dating is even more sound after this eerie incident. If the plan for my life includes another man to love at some point, he ain't comin' in via the Internet!

And the moral of the story is: Don't be afraid to speak up.

Isn't life funny?!