Fate, Karma, Providence - call it what you will

There is an old saying that goes: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Well yesterday I did what I thought was a good deed. Yesterday, I went out of my way to the old neighborhood, to a bakery to pick up a treat that my wife loves. I wanted to surprise her, and when she wakes up later this morning she will have a tasty treat waiting for her.

Before I headed home from the bakery, I figured I would stop to see a friend. As soon as we met, he told me that another dear friend’s father had passed, and the son of that same friend and his ex-wife, who is also a dear friend of mine, had also passed. Both departing this world within the last two weeks, about a week apart from one another.

So I went to see my other friend, his ex, and all the others who were gathered to grieve. And I grieved with his family and loved ones. As fate would have it I wound up there right after the funeral for the lost son.

Now you may look at this, and then may agree that indeed no good deed goes unpunished; and that my good deed was outweighed by bad fortune. Yet, I have to tell you without a shadow of a doubt, I was not punished but was a lucky man. By chance of something I tried to do for another, I was there where I could help when dear friends needed comfort, and when the comfort of my presence was all I could offer. Call it fate, karma, luck, providence. Call it what you will; but my doing a nice thing put me in the right place, at the right time, to do what little I could to comfort some friends.

I am one heck of a lucky man, and I guess I’ll have to admit, at least in this case, my good deed did not go unrewarded. My reward was being there, and comforting my friends, doing what little I could do for them at this sad time, that was more than I deserved, and it meant more to me than you could imagine. You see they had lost my phone number, and no one had called me to let me know what had happened. It is funny how things sometimes play out, how you are sometimes faced with totally unexpected consequences of your actions, and how sometimes things just turn out for the best, even when you are suddenly faced with worst, all because of something seemingly unrelated that you did. It s exactly how my day went, and it was about as far from what I had planned as I could have imagined; but I have to admit, it was good to be there for my friends in their time of need, certainly more than I expected and more than I deserved.

All the best,
Glenn B