Sometimes moments in life change our lives forever. A few minutes that put us in the right place at the right time. I like to call it the 5 minute window. I never gave this much thought, just like most people, until the day everything went just right. At the time I didn’t know it, but when I looked back you could see everything falling into place. It was that moment that I was hit with the BIG question “WHY?” Why now? What was the purpose of everything happening just right that day - for this moment? Life gives us many challenging and puzzling questions, one is “WHAT IF I HAD BEEN 5 MINUTES EARLIER OR LATER?” I am devoting this website to answering and exploring that question. I like to think about the 5 minute window as the “Tumbler’s Of Life”, one event tumbling into the next - charting the course of our days, everyday.
Red lights in traffic that irritate us and hold us up, why that light that day? What if the light had been green? And I was 5 minutes earlier down the road? How different would my day have been?
There are a million small decisions and moments that affect our lives everyday, most we will never give a single thought to. Until you are faced with being in the right place at the right time. You start wondering “WHY?” and you start looking back at the events and moments that caused you to be right there at that time. Was this meant to be? Could I have changed it? What do I do now with this opportunity?
My day was April 23, 2004. That morning when I got up I had no idea that my life would be changed forever. I had no idea life was setting me up for a 5 minute window, where I would run back into my now husband, Henry. Why is this so special? Henry and I first dated back in fall 1978 until Spring 1980, I was 18 when I first met Henry. We broke up and for 23 years we NEVER heard from each other, never talked to each other, never knew anything about each other. For 23 years our parents lived in the same houses that we grew up in, in the same town, we both visited often going out to eat, shop and in 1989 Henry moved back permanently to live here in Manassas, Virginia. We never ran into each other, that is until April 23, 2004. Why that day? Why then? Why at all? Henry and I will each tell our sides of that incredible day, you will see how things just worked, or as I like to say the “Tumbler’s all fell into place”. For Henry and I to be at the same place at the same time for a 5 minute window of opportunity to re-connect. And honestly 5 minutes earlier or later and we would have missed each other. You will see from our stories that a lot had to go right that day.
