Serendipity

BY LARRY WHITELEY

I was walking along a gravel bar fishing in a creek when I saw it. The sun was shining on it like a beacon, guiding me to it. I knelt, picked it up and held it gently in my hand. It was a Native American arrowhead.

According to Webster, serendipity means to find something you were not looking for. I have experienced serendipity several times in my life. The arrowhead was just another time when I found something I was not looking for - serendipity.

On a September day several years ago, I was riding my ATV down an old logging road when a squirrel ran across in front of me. I followed the squirrel as he ran through the woods. My eyes stopped when I saw something white sticking up through the brown leaves. I hit the brakes on the ATV and backed up. I thought it might be a limb or just some kind of fungus.

When I got to the white shape, it was the shed antler from a 10-point buck. As I held it and enjoyed its beauty, I thought about how unique deer antlers really are. Like fingerprints, no two are alike.

Since then, I have learned where and how to look for shed antlers and have found many. I still remember the first one, and the day I found something I was not looking for – serendipity!

I was walking along an old roadbed deep in the woods one day. Trees had grown up in its path, but if you looked hard enough, you could still see where others had traveled the old road many years ago. As I walked, I wondered who had used this road in the past. Was it loggers, lead miners, soldiers, or people who lived here in the hills?

I kept following the old road until it crossed a dry creek bed. There, lying half-buried in the gravel, was the metal rim of a wagon wheel. A long time ago, they tried to cross this creek, and the wagon wheel must have hit a big rock. In my mind’s eye, I could see it happening. The wood of the wheel had long returned to the earth, but the rusted metal rim remained to be found by me when I was not looking for it – serendipity!

One spring, I was hiking to a special little waterfall I knew about deep in the woods where I liked to go. I had spent time there before, daydreaming or falling asleep as I listened to the flowing water.

I had been there many times, but this time it was a little different from my usual way. As I followed the sounds of the water, I came to a big flat rock. Sitting upright on the rock was a glass soda pop bottle that dated back to the 1940s.

Like me, someone else enjoyed coming to the little waterfall. The bottle that they had been drinking from remained where it was left over 70 years ago. I came along and found it even though I wasn’t looking for it – serendipity!

I hope there are many more serendipities to come in my life and in yours. I hope that you will discover your own serendipity moments. Those special places, special people, special times and special things that come along when you were not looking for them – serendipity!

Something to think about    

 “Sometimes life drops blessings in your lap. Serendipity, they call it.”

 - Charlton Heston

Missouri Ozarks native Larry Whiteley has communicated the great outdoors across America for over 40 years through newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, and a nationally syndicated radio show. To read more of his award-winning stories, go to www.storiesbylarry.com. Email him at larrywhiteley2@gmail.com.