Serendipity

On a beautiful November day, the countryside can be very attractive. It can also trigger memories and questions. As I drove home today, the sun shining on trees covered in coats of many-coloured leaves, I found myself thinking, "I've been travelling this road all my life". Not only metaphorically, but physically. Since I returned to my birthplace, I've been passing through places and along roads so well-known to me and understanding why my parents loved the region so much. I could hear my grandfather's voice telling me that the reason for the flattening out of the road on steep hills was because it was a Roman road and they had to build in "horse rests", I remembered happy weekend visits to Roman remains with my parents, class visits from school. So many things that I didn't appreciate when they happened, but which are now imprinted on my psyche.

And then I began to wonder what serendipity made me come home just before my cancer was diagnosed. If I'd remained where I was living when my mother died, I would have had surgery in the hospital where she lost her life and I would have had to travel a long way for radiotherapy each day. Where I am now, the hospitals don't appear in the list of those where MRSA and C.difficile are rampant and one of the most advanced cancer research centres in the world is based here. Was it just chance I chose to come back now? Or something else?