Long long ago

Way back many many years ago....My mom and I started to write to pen-pals. One day my mom got a letter from her pen-pal in Michigan. She was a young mom with two children the youngest a boy of 5 months. I was about 13 or 14 years at the time. One day mom was reading a letter from her pen-pal and she made a comment that this pen-pal said about me. Well one thing lead to another and soon I was writing this same woman in Michigan, as well as my own two pen-pals.
Over the years we chatting about everything under the sun. Of course when mom got a letter from her she usually said something about me and mom had to share. Funny now that I look back it almost seems strange that mom and I wrote to the same lady and we were all very good friends.
Any ways time went on I got married started a family and only kept in touch once in awhile as my mom was still writing every week, I didn't have to update as often. Soon I didn't hear my mom talking about her much, I knew she was still writing to her, but we didn't talk as much as we used too. Once in awhile mom would say oh her daughter did this or her son did that or her hubby said this or did that. We had always thought one day we would all drive out there to visit and meet in person. Yes we had sent pictures over the years but it would have been so very nice to actually meet.
Then of course mom got sick and it wasn't long before she passed.
I often had thought about Dawn and her family during the funeral and next few weeks. Then one day as we were cleaning out mom's junk drawer I found an old letter to her.
SO I wrote to let her know her old friend had passed. The letter came back. NFA (no forwarding address).
About a month went by and I got my mail one day, and in it was a magazine about gardening.
Now mind you I never read front cover to back cover in one sitting as I usually don't have time. But this day I sat right down and went page by page. I got to the back and they had a section from other subscribers asking for seeds and such in exchange for different seeds that they wanted. NOW I NEVER READ THIS SECTION!!!! But on this day I started to read what everyone was looking for and thinking that maybe I had something from my garden I could share.
And all of a sudden I came across this lady who wanted Horseradish roots. Well low and behold I had some that I could share. Then my mouth dropped open. This lady had the same name as the pen-pal my mom and I had wrote to so long ago.
So I wrote to this lady and said yes I have horseradish roots that she could have. Then I asked if she might be the one that we wrote to so many years ago and that I had some news.
Well, she wrote back all excited and said yes it was she and she hoped that it was good news.
I wrote back and said no I'm sorry its bad news then proceeded to tell her about moms passing. Well we got right on the Internet and started to chat. I told her how I never ever read that section of the magazine but did that day.
She told me it had to be my mom's doing that she pushed me to read it,because she knew that Dawns request was there. It was just meant to be.
So after all these years we are back in contact and making plans to now actually visit.
And just when we thought we had it figured out her hubby dies. But she told me tonight that he couldn't believe that we got back together over horseradish roots! Yes indeed it is a funny thing to bring us together again, but I'm sure glad it did.
I'm just sorry her hubby had to die, before we got a chance to meet. But I know for sure that my mom was there waiting for him and they are talking about old times and just waiting for the rest of us to catch up with them.