Yesterday I received an unusual email. It was unusual for a number of reasons but some explanation is required to understand the context.
Long, long ago in a place far, far away I was in a previous relationship. Harper’s Other Dad refers to him as “The first ‘Mrs. Harper’s Keeper'”(TFMHK). TFMHK is an interesting, witty, and talented man. The relationship did not end particularly well, as is often the case with such endings, but any hard feelings have long since disappeared. For a number of reasons we did not stay in touch. In fact, there hadn’t been any contact at all in more than a decade when I received a Facebook Friend Request from him last year; which I accepted.
Part of the TFMHK’s spiritual journey includes a belief in past lives. At the time I was last in contact with him there were two previous lives of which he was aware and into which he had done research. The Sender of the email I received yesterday was one of those past-life names.
I recognized the name immediately but since the name is not unusual, and since I rarely receive email from people who have been dead since 1830, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence. At least, it was interesting enough to make me open the email rather than just deleting it as SPAM.
The email was blank. There was no subject and no text or attachments. I expanded the addressee list and saw the names of a couple mutual friends so I knew I was correct about the source. I clicked ‘Reply” and typed “Hi , Hope all is well. Wanted to let you know this email came through without content so if you were trying to send something, the addressees did not receive it.” Take Care “. My greeting used his current-life name. I did not ask why the email came from one of the previous-life names.
Now for the ‘happy’ part… one of the other addressees of the blank email is an old friend of TFMHK’s with whom I had become friends during the relationship. He is a terrific person and I enjoyed knowing him and his partner very much. Unfortunately, due to the break-up and subsequent job changes and moves we’d lost track of each other. I sent a note to the email address saying ‘hi‘ and hoping to catch up. I received a response back almost immediately saying he had the same idea. He saw my email address and was getting ready to send me a note when he received mine.
Over the course of the exchange we were able to catch up a bit. He is back in NYC after many years in the midwest. Since we were last in touch, he has given up his ‘day job’ career to devote himself to his passion for writing. He’s had a play produced off-Broadway and was working on another. It sounds like he’s happy and well. Certainly reconnecting with him was a wonderful surprise in my day. I hope we can keep in touch.
I heard back from TFMHK. His original email should have contained a request for sponsorship for a charity walk he’s doing in October and a link to the charity’s donation site. Had the content been in the first email I would never have expanded the addressee list and found the contact information for the friend in NYC. I clicked the link in the follow-up email and made a donation.
No explanation was offered for why the email come from the past-life name. It doesn’t matter. It is a more interesting story because of that element so I had something to blog about; maybe just another happy accident.