A Texas Almost-Tall Tale

I’m not in the business of writing fiction. I just need to put that out there before I tell you a story about what happened yesterday in Texas. It may sound like a tall tale, but it’s absolutely true.

If you read my blog post from Wednesday, A Heart as Big as Texas, you know that my second cousin Chris recently died in a house fire (if you haven’t read the post, take the time now to click on the link, read it and and then come back to this). The funeral was set for yesterday afternoon in Friendswood, Texas, which is south of Houston. As I drove to St. Paul yesterday morning for a dentist appointment and a research stop at the Minnesota History Center, I thought about Chris and how nice it would be if I could have attended the service and given support to extended family members that I’ve never had the chance to meet.

Then, when I arrived at the history center, I checked my email on my phone. My uncle Bob, my dad’s brother, had sent me a message. He and his wife, Debbi, were driving to Florida and had spent Wednesday night in Beaumont, Texas, due to car trouble. He had read my blog, and they decided they’d try to make it to Chris’ funeral service if their car was fixed in time.

How incredible is that? I had to read the message a second time to make sure I had read it correctly. I knew Bob had left Minnesota before Christmas, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he would be passing through Texas – which is no quick feat – on the day of Chris’ funeral. And even if I had known, I wouldn’t have expected that he’d be reading my blog during a road trip.

As it turned out, their car wasn’t fixed in time (they had to wait on a part), so Bob and Debbi rented a car and drove about 90 miles to Friendswood, making it just in time for the service, where they heard friends and family members talk about their times with Chris and about his lifelong love of animals. Afterward, Bob and Debbi introduced themselves to Chris’ family, including his mom, Islea Duncan, whom Bob hadn’t seen since the late 1970s. Needless to say, she was quite surprised to see him, but also glad to reconnect with her cousin from Minnesota.

As my dad says, the Lord works in mysterious ways. And who knows, maybe Chris does, too.