{"id":1274,"date":"2022-07-20T14:41:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T14:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1274"},"modified":"2022-07-20T14:41:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T14:41:14","slug":"serendipity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/serendipity\/1274\/","title":{"rendered":"Serendipity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We had a game where we would set up prompts and build stories together, sometimes wild, crazy stories.  \u2018It could so easily have been me\u2026.\u2019 was one opener and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

complicated, fantasy travel plans was another favourite. It made us laugh, and the dafter, the better.  In fact we enjoyed doing most things together and even doing nothing together was better than doing nothing separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018easily have been me\u2019 one was a rich vat of story opportunities. We often returned to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u2018There but for fortune. If my great grandfather hadn\u2019t been off work because a pig stood on his toe and crushed it, he wouldn\u2019t have met my grandmother who was delivering groceries and they wouldn\u2019t have had my dad who met my mum when he helped to fish her out of the baths because she jumped into the deep end by mistake. And if my mum hadn\u2019t missed the train that was derailed and where everyone died, my story might never have lived to be told.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s serendipity.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Well the whole life-thing\u2019s a game of chance isn\u2019t it?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m not so sure, what about fate? And things being written in the stars?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Stick with serendipity, it\u2019s a butterfly word. Fate sounds heavy and morose.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, fate sounds like a dismal outcome ahead but serendipity is more of a flutter-on-a-fruit-machine sort of outcome.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Poor butterfly then, those machines are rigged.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve thought about this conversation a lot recently. We were best friends for years. Nothing exclusive. We each had other friends and sometimes lived in different towns for work or college – but we never lost touch.  One thing about friendship is that kith is often placed lower in the relationship hierarchy than kin, and yet none of the kin did stories like we did.  The grief of friends needs attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One evening we were talking when a \u2018it could easily have been me\u2019 tale started up. Except this wasn\u2019t a tale. It was an account of a trip to an oncology clinic, complete with diagnosis and treatment plan. Brain tumour. Grade 3. Surgery. Chemo. These were definitely not butterfly words and they brought oceans of tears and grief to us both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But why you? What\u2019s caused it? Are you sure the hospital got it right?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Serendipity, isn\u2019t it? Just my luck. Have to wait and see what happens won\u2019t we?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened was disturbed vision, memory loss, head pain.  But the person in the middle was often still available for chats and stories and tears. We muddled through. No rhyme nor reason; it could easily have been me. <\/em> The fruit machines are, indeed rigged: butterflies are <\/em>broken on a wheel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last days were mainly ones of oblivion. No more stories to share. The funeral was out of my domain and orchestrated by kin. My flowers had a simple message attached \u2013 \u2018it could easily have been me\u2019. When I thought about an epitaph I couldn\u2019t do better than Serendipity<\/em>. What a terrible waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had a game where we would set up prompts and build stories together, sometimes wild, crazy stories.  \u2018It could so easily have been me\u2026.\u2019 was one opener and complicated, fantasy travel plans was another favourite. It made us laugh, and the dafter, the better.  In fact we enjoyed doing most things together and even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[597,635],"tags":[12,638,11],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-597","category-july-2022-chance","tag-my","tag-serendipity","tag-was"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-ky","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1276,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions\/1276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}