Miracle?

I experienced not one but two very unlikely event happening at the same time.

We had booked a Catamaran trip of the caldera in Santorini and we were instructed to wait at a busy junction for pickup. So we did. Meera, being the wiser of the two waited in a protected storefront, I, sat on the embankment of a curb with a duffle bag in front of me. The bag contained a beach towel, our warm outer layers, our eye glasses in their hard cases, as well as my camera and my favorite telephoto lens.

A minivan was sharing the curb space with me. This by itself was not unusual. The roads are so narrow; the drivers think nothing about parking their vehicle on the curb. The driver was washing it and I paid no attention because I was busy watching traffic to flag down our ride. The driver finished his work and started moving his vehicle in my direction. According to him, he saw me but not my bag. The next thing I knew, one of the tires of the vehicle was on our duffle bag.

I noticed what was going on and immediately shouted at the driver. He stopped and reversed. I had to untangle the bag as now it was caught in the mud flap. Finally, the bag was free and I examined it in a state of shock.

The second unlikely thing had happened. Just by chance, all of the fragile stuff was on one side of the bag, which the vehicle did not go over. When we opened and took our stuff absolutely nothing was damaged. OK, the hard case protecting Meera’s glasses had a crack but it protected her glasses. My camera and the telephoto lens were unharmed.

Fate? Miracle? God’s doing? Or just two improbable events happening, as they do now and then, for no reason? Take your pick.