I had a long chat with Grace’s mother this past Sunday evening. I’ve heard many stories where one or both people in a couple knew upon the first awareness of the other’s existence that they were “meant to be.” I have a coworker who walked up to a fellow stranger student in high school and told her, “I’m gonna marry you one day” and freaked the heck out of her. Decades later, they are still happily married with their three children. I have a friend who dropped his normally bitter and jaded disposition when he met the love of his life on a flight, and glowingly upon his return described to us how, as he watched her connector flight take off from the window of the airport terminal, he thought, “My God – I think I just met my future wife.” We were incredulous but months later, they were wed, she flew to California to begin her new life with him, and has told us since that as she flew off that day, she watched the airport shrink and thought the exact thing – that she had just met the man she was meant to marry. They remain to this day one of the strongest couples I know.

My question is, what is the ratio of people who have thought this and had it happen, versus the people who have thought this and were wrong? You never hear about the “wrong” stories.