The most notable coincidence in my life was just a few days shy of my first Thanksgiving without my dad — at least as I’d known him. He’d had heart surgery in January 2017, followed by complications ranging from strokes to a life-threatening bacterial infection. The repeated assaults on his system transformed him. Last Thanksgiving, he had run circles around my 3-year-old. This year, he sat motionless in a chair, unable to spoon his own mashed potatoes.
I needed a distraction. So I hit eBay in search of a license plate for my boys’ transportation-themed bedroom. I decided to look for a Massachusetts plate, because I spent a lot of time there with my dad.
When the first one popped up, the numbers nearly leapt off my screen. It was a 1938 plate, the same year my dad was born, with the numbers 143264. My mom was born in February (2) of 1943, and they married in 1964. I contacted the seller, who told me the plate was part of his father’s vintage collection. He had thousands of them.
“I lost my dad last December, after a 10-year battle with Parkinson’s disease,” he wrote. “He was my best friend. Every time I box up a plate, it kills me, but I do it for my son and nephew’s college fund.”
Was it a coincidence that almost all of the numbers lined up with different aspects of my parents’ lives? That the seller and I shared a yearning for dads who were no longer there? The majority of scientists say it’s simple mathematics. Some researchers subscribe to the fringe claim that invisible forces “make things happen.” But most camps agree such scenarios are part of our brain’s innate need to create order out of chaos — and we experience them more often when we’re paying attention.
