The Coincidence

Coincidences are defined as chance happenings, perhaps occurring once in a life-time because the probabilities of occurring are incalculably small.  They can seem eerily purposeful, even supernatural, in the way certain sequences match-up.  They tend to evoke feelings of something planned.  I will define it as something awesome, something to challenge the imagination, for instance the meeting of two people at a certain place and time that is “meant to be.”   I’ve had two such chance meetings happen to me in my life and I will tell you about one of them.

When I was attending Eastside High School in Paterson, N.J., I sat in English class. In the next row and one seat in front sat a certain male student who I will call “Hermie.” Since I always had a good view of his back and profile I began to study him in moments when my thoughts were wandering.  He had a very interesting look - tall, dark and somewhat handsome in a different and exotic way.  At that time, and still to this day, I never knew anyone in person I could compare him to.  In the world of television, he was a cross pollination of Leonard Nimoy and Martin Landau.  I think you have the picture.  I couldn’t decide if his particular look was handsome or not but it surely fascinated me and I began to guess at who he really was beyond what I could visually make out.  All I knew is that he was one of the egg-heads who belonged to many clubs including several honor ones.  His serious deportment alone told me that. 

Then one day my question was answered.  Our teacher, Miss Behrman, had asked us to write an essay the prior week.  The requirements for that essay escapes me and so does what I wrote; however, the essay that impressed Miss Behrman the most was written by my mystery fellow student, Hermie.  On this day not only did she single him out in a very proud way in front of the entire class, but she begged him to read his paper in front of us.  I thought she was almost on the verge of tears as he made his way to the front of the blackboard.  He calmly read to us what he had written about his father, explaining to us how he was his hero because he survived unfathomable and horrendous circumstances during the Holocaust and somehow had emerged mostly intact and to become his wonderful father.  Hermie also told us that he could detect when his father was silently suffering from the nightmares of his imprisonment in a concentration camp (and much more) but bravely tried not to allow himself to show it to his son.  Hermie was aware of it anyway but neither would draw attention to his father’s pain.  What Hermie told us that day, among many other things, is that his father suffered in silence and would not burden anyone else with his story.  Another possibility was perhaps that what he had to say was just too unspeakable.

Life moved on beyond that day in my junior year English class. We eventually graduated and moved on to the bigger world that was awaiting us.  However, I never forgot Hermie’s essay.  My teenage classmate who showed his love and appreciation for his father, a Holocaust survivor, will stay with me forever.  He said that his father never let it ruin the happiness he needed and refused to bestow his burden upon his son.

20 some odd years later I was exiting The Kosher Nosh in Glen Rock with my late husband and my parents one Sunday evening in early December.  It had just gotten dark and since I was the last to exit, I held the door open for the next person to come in.  To my surprise, it was Hermie(!),the boy who had fascinated me that whole year until he held my reverence.  He looked the same.  I was utterly aglow at this chance meeting because I hadn’t seen him since graduation.  As we both paused at the open door, I started to tell him how nice it was to see him again and how I never forgot that beautiful essay he had written in honor of his father that day in English class……

.His face flashed a look that I could not interpret in that second.  He answered me by saying, “Thank you for remembering.  My father died just this afternoon and I am here to make arrangements for the food for his shiva.” I was suddenly touched with a deep feeling of sadness and I felt a pang of guilt for greeting him so gleefully. I never saw Hermie again nor did I ever hear anything about him. 

Dorothy Douma Greene, Past President of the JHSNJ