I was working on a story titled “All-Time-Worst Pitch … Made Me Rich,” when I ran into a perplexing problem.  A total roadblock. How to simplify a complex story – one that involved quantum physics, cancer, depression, hope against all odds and the ephemeral topic of “miracles?”

The story was about a terminally ill cancer patient.

Third Time Was a Charm, but So Were the First and Second Times

He also happened to be a licensed clinical neuropsychologist and an international best-selling author who actually ended up surviving his “terminal” illness, after dying, not once, not twice … but three times.

Part of the story delved into the concept of synchronicity―finding meaning in causally unrelated (“acausal”) coincidences and events―events that greatly stretch the probabilities of chance and even belief sometimes. The doctor in the story believed the concept of synchronicity helped him understand and survive his “terminal” disease. The trick, he believed, was to become aware of these happenings (events and coincidences) and to seek meaning in them.

Some synchronicity events create puzzling paradoxes that seem beyond our understanding of reality. They conflict with fundamental principles of our reason, but nonetheless, they happen.

” A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality should be like.” – Richard Feynman, American physicist

Synchronicity was a term coined by Dr. Carl Jung to describe these types of happenings. During his many years of research and medical practice, he documented multiple cases that could not be explained by mere probabilities of chance. Dr. Jung came to believe if you paid attention to these events, they could add meaning to your life. They might even help and guide you in a time of personal distress.

All of this was out of my league. Way out. But I was open to at least thinking about the possibility of synchronicity. The problem was how to explain it in clear, simple language and at the same time, incorporate the quantum physics, non-locality and observer participancy elements that were also part of the story. Then, weave them so that the seams didn’t show. Like I said, way out of my league.

Examples?

Some coincidences could be interesting little ”What the …?” moments.

You go to a bookstore looking for a particular book, but can’t remember the title.

You walk down an aisle and a book falls off the shelf to the floor in front of you.

It’s the very book you’re looking for.

Odd, but nothing life-shattering.

Perplexing though.

But some synchronicity events could be life-saving and life-altering, like the following two real-life events.

Ordinary Reasons but No Ordinary Miracles

“All 15 members of a church choir in Beatrice, Nebraska, due at practice at 7:20, were late on the evening of March 1, 1950.

The minister, his wife and daughter had one reason (his wife delayed to iron the daughter’s dress), one girl waited to finish a geometry problem, one couldn’t start her car, two lingered to hear the end of an especially exciting radio program, one mother and daughter were late because the mother had to call the daughter twice to wake her from a nap, and so on. The reasons seemed rather ordinary.

But there were 10 separate and quite unconnected reasons for the lateness of the 15 persons.

It was rather fortunate that none of the 15 arrived on time at 7:20, for at 7:25 the church building was destroyed in an explosion.” – From “Lady Luck: The Theory of Probability,” by Warren Weaver

The Odds?

What to make of that? What does it mean? What are the odds of something like that happening? Is there possibly an undiscovered connection between minds that transcends the known laws of the universe? Are our minds connected to a “collective unconscious” as Dr. Jung believed? And …

What to Make of This?

One of my all-time favorite books, a classic called “Search for Meaning” written by Dr. Victor Frankl described a synchronicity event that changed his life forever. He had a successful neurology and psychiatry practice in Germany in the late 1930′s, but he was Jewish. He knew he had to leave Germany or face death. Dr. Frankl applied for a Visa and, after several years, it was approved. But there was a problem.

“I was asked to come to the US consulate to pick up my visa. Then I hesitated: Should I leave my parents behind? I knew what their fate would be: deportation to a concentration camp. Should I say good-bye and leave them to their fate? The visa was exclusively for me.”

- Victor Frankl, Search for Meaning

Dr. Frankl picked up the visa and went to visit his parents to talk about it. When he arrived, he found his father in tears. “The Nazis have burned down the synagogue.” Dr. Frankl noticed his father had something in his hand. He held it up. It was a fragment of marble his father had saved from the synagogue. It had some scorched writing on it.

One

One letter engraved on the marble. It was the beginning of one of the Ten Commandments. Which one? The commandment?

“Honor thy father and thy mother.”

Dr. Frankl made his decision. He canceled his visa. It changed his life forever. He was sent to the death camps – yes I said ‘camps’. He survived more than one death camp. “Search for Meaning” recounts that experience. Dr. Frankl eventually survived a terminal death sentence multiple times too.

Never Happened to Me

Strange, undeniably strange, and true. But nothing like that has ever happened to me. Not even the book falling off a shelf in front of me.

Until Now

But maybe I hadn’t been looking close enough because while finalizing the research for the story, trying to figure out how to simplify it, I happened across an article I’d written a couple of years ago. Synchronicity? I don’t know. But I hadn’t thought about the story for a long time.

It was also about, remarkably, another terminally ill cancer patient. A woman I worked with. It had been exceptionally hard to write, but was one of those rare moments when you feel humbled to be asked to do something that might actually make a difference―if only for a short time.

How to Boil it Down?

Trying to complete that story was a challenge for me too. Remarkably similar to the one I was working on.

Living While Dying

The raw emotions involved, the brutal facts, the stark realities, and worse, trying to communicate what it’s like facing the everyday issues of actually living while you’re dying―in plain, simple language―without getting lost in data or minutiae that really didn’t matter.

IF & ONE

Happening upon that article (below) at exactly that time helped solve my problem. It removed the block. It reminded me that a complicated story with a wide cast of characters and immense amounts of data and arcane information can still actually be simple if you boil it down to two things: “IF” and “ONE.”

The Paradox for Me?

It made me ask the question that, as I think about it (which I try to avoid … thinking that is), still makes my head want to explode.

Was happening upon that article purposeful or simply an accident? I struggle with the thought of it being purposeful. It conflicts with my view of reality. If it wasn’t purposeful, then it was an accident. But if it was an accident, it was “acausal”―a synchronistic event that only I could draw meaning from. Either way it sent my kilt a-flutter, sorta like knowing the Boogie Man was watching.

Anyway, the article I happened upon is below. It’s about one special person and an incredibly important “IF.”

If and One

IF

If the expansion rate of the universe was changed by one-part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion, faster or slower, life on earth would not exist.

But it does.

If a measuring tape was stretched across the universe and segmented in one-inch increments (billions upon gazillions of inches) representing the force strengths of nature (gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong nuclear forces) and the tape was moved one inch in either direction, life on earth would not exist.

But it does.

If the cosmological constant (the energy density of space) and part of Einstein’s equation of General Relativity, was not tuned to one-part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion (1053 – 10 followed by 53 zeroes), life on earth would not exist.

But it does.

A Step Ahead, A Step Behind, A Step Away

Life, balanced on a razor’s edge, is always a step away from the great divide. Nonetheless, life, you, me, exist … and move on.

So does Cancer.

One Million Deaths … Per Second

Each one of us has between seventy-five to one hundred trillion cells in our bodies. Approximately one million of them die every second.

Our continued existence is predicated on a complex churning of cells dividing, growing, replacing and replicating. Occasionally one of those million replications per second doesn’t go well. An error is replicated. A cell mutates. Thus begins an “uncontrolled proliferation and disorganized growth of cells,” and leads us to … 3,761 people per day that will be diagnosed as “new cases of cancer,” this year in the United States alone.

3,761 people per day.

I want to talk about just one - Aimee Dailey.

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”

– Nelson Henderson

Aimee Dailey, a former Cincom employee, lives in Middletown, Ohio. Aimee is currently diagnosed with incurable cancer, and is now on her third round of chemotherapy in the last three months.

Aimee will have to go through four or five more rounds of treatments before she will know if the chemotherapy is working. The last round of treatments didn’t work – and Aimee has been fighting Cancer for the last seven years.

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.

That will be the beginning.”

– Louis L’Amour

What’s it like for Aimee?

Bone pain, back pain, hard to walk, muscles bind and tighten up. In Aimee’s words, “Just moving is a joke sometimes.” Yet, life calls. There are still everyday duties to be performed.

Aimee is married to Bill.

They have two children; Jake is 10 years old and in the fifth grade, Eryne is seven years old and in the second grade.

Jake and Eryne have never known their mother when she didn’t have cancer.

The way she is, is the way she has always been – to them.

Jake wonders …

“You know children are growing  up when they start asking questions that have answers.”

- John J. Plomp

Jake wonders and asks about going to Disney World on vacation like his friends. Aimee and Bill tell him they can’t afford it. The medical bills are crushing.

Aimee’s doctors are concerned about a newly discovered tumor close to her heart. As a result, she now has to take heart medication in addition to the 27 other medications she has to take regularly.

Do the Math

What’s the co-pay cost (the insured’s responsibility) on 27 medications?

Crushing.

And that’s just a tiny fraction of the medical bills.

But … tiny fractions make all the difference.

Tiny fractions enable life on this planet to exist.

Tiny fractions can also mean choosing between medication, food or Christmas gifts.

Between health, hope and happiness.

And Now, It’s Christmas

Aimee has been in the hospital for the last two Christmas’s. Her Christmas wish? Simple, really: To do it up well for her children, Jake and Eyrne. To make this Christmas especially memorable.

If, Aimee, and Me

We’ve talked about “If.”

We’ve talked about Aimee.

Who is the “Me”?

You.

You are me.

I am me.

We are all me.

A Helping Hand

So if you can, please, please lend a helping hand.

EPILOGUE:

An outpouring of contributions from around the world helped Aimee “do it up well for her children” that Christmas.

But life, balanced on a razor’s edge, is always a step away from the great divide.

Aimee died not long after.

It was my honor to have met her. And her memory reached out to remind me how short, simple, complex, miraculous and mysterious life is.

END:

Thanks for reading.

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Steve