Did We Almost Not Meet?
June 28, 2026
A few years ago, someone I knew said something to me that I have never forgotten.
“Did we almost not meet?”
It was such a simple question, but it carried so much weight.
The more I thought about it, the larger it became.
How many things have to happen for two people to meet?
How many stars have to align for two people to find each other?
A different road.
A different school.
A different job.
A different decision.
A different day.
Change one of those things, and perhaps two lives never cross paths at all.
No conversation.
No laughter.
No shared stories.
No memory of one another.
No influence, however small, that one person might have had on the other.
We usually think of meeting someone as an ordinary event.
But perhaps it is not ordinary at all.
Every person who becomes part of our life arrives through a long chain of events we rarely stop to consider.
The roads taken.
The roads avoided.
The delays.
The choices.
The moments that seemed unimportant at the time.
And somewhere along that chain, two lives intersect.
Sometimes briefly.
Sometimes for years.
Sometimes long enough to change each other.
That is what stays with me about the question.
“Did we almost not meet?”
Because behind it is another thought:
Who would I be if certain people had never entered my life?
What would I have never learned?
What would I have never written?
What part of myself might have remained undiscovered?
And what part of another person might I have touched without ever knowing it?
Maybe that is why some meetings feel more significant when we look back on them.
Not because we can explain why they happened.
But because we can see what became possible after they did.
A conversation begins.
A friendship forms.
A memory is created.
A door opens.
A life touches another life.
And the ripples begin.