Time and Chance Happeneth

Just sittin' round, thinking about how things go, and for some reason the story of Joni Mitchell and her daughter drifted into my mind. Mitchell gave her daughter up for adoption in her own youth, and when you know that, her 1971 song "Little Green" is quite simply heartrending. "There'll be icicles, and birthday clothes," the song goes, "and sometimes, there'll be sorrow."

But they were reunited, by sheer chance, in 1997. Mother and daughter reunited. We know about it because Mitchell is an artist and a celebrity. There are other stories, just as moving, that we don't know because they happened to regular folks. But could anything be more profoundly right, more heartening, than for a mother and child to find each other after being swept apart by time and chance? Could there possibly be? I don't think so.

Time and chance. It's a smaller story, absurdly smaller, perhaps, but in late 1999 time and chance brought together a man and a cat, both of whom needed a friend, and when I think about the randomness of it—well. The little guy is curled up beside me, dozing peacefully. He's not a child, of course. But I wonder if anyone in this world would value him, care about him, as much as I do? Time and chance. Wild, wild stuff.