When I Moved Over One Seat

A chaplain who wrote about her premonitions & sense of destiny sat next to me.

The rows were five seats wide. The two on the inside aisle were taken, so when I sat on the opposite side, that left two seats between. A couple of people passed by on my left so I offered to move over. They either didn’t hear me through my mask, or they saw a seat they preferred. I decided to move over one seat anyway.

A few minutes later, just before the Third Place Books Author Open Mic was about to start, a woman approached, crouched down as if she was afraid she was interrupting the event with her timing, and asked me if the seat was taken. I said, “No,” then, a minute or so later, the moderator approached the podium.

The Author Open Mic offers an opportunity for authors to read from their work. We had lined up to choose numbers, and I’d drawn number 22, so I knew I was going to be reading close to the end. The other authors shared poems, essays, fiction, and nonfiction. There was an incredible level of variety and sophistication.

When my number was drawn, I shared part of my book, God? Damn. A section that seemed like it would be located at the beginning of the book, but actually came from the middle. It was a beginning in a sense. It was the beginning of Chapter Two, which I often describe as Event #2, because it was so clear to see the impact it had on me.

It also might have been the fact that Events #1, #2. and #3, the ledes in each of those chapters of my memoir, occurred in public settings. Multiple people were involved, whereas for most of the other events it was just me and sometimes close family. Event #2 occurred at a writers’ workshop planned two weeks before the holiday season. I wasn’t in a holiday mood, so I struggled with the idea of attending, but finally convinced myself to go, or so I thought.

The story was too long to read at the Author Open Mic, which has a five-minute limit. So I chose the content that led up to it.

I went back to my seat and asked the woman sitting next to me, “Why didn’t you read anything?”

She said, “I’m new to all of this. Really green.”

“You should have read anyway,” I said, as I glanced at the back cover of her book.

“You’re a chaplain,” I said, unable to hold back a laugh of uncertainty about how she would react to my book’s title. I caught a few words of her synopsis as we continued to talk, and my heart just about stopped.

She had suffered the loss of her youngest daughter, but as we talked she mentioned that she had gotten signs. She opened the front cover, and I read a quote that had a sentiment that was similar to the opening quote in mine. I asked her if we could exchange books.

The next week I read her story, Firefly. It’s a page-turner of heartbreak, but in the end she says:

“As to whether people’s lives are planned or destined, I believe at the very least there is purpose, some kind of unique job we are called to do. In Ashley’s case, both she and I were getting glimpses of her path forward in premonitions, dreams, and unexplained experiences during and after her life. None of this makes logical sense, but I could see there were connections. All I can make of it now is that there is a lot more going on beyond what the eye can see.”

I could hardly believe what I was reading. I finally met someone who used the words, destiny and premonition. And she sat right next to me.

What was even more amazing is that the content I shared that night was the beginning of Chapter Two, and the focal event of that chapter revolves around the importance of sitting in certain chairs.

Some of the people who were there that evening saw me sitting at the end, then saw me move over. A few minutes later they may have watched Jane sit down and remember seeing us talking after the readings. The moderator did, and he was excited about it. What more could I ask for, except for seeing my book on a bookstore shelf?

I hope you will help to support Jane as she shares her story of Ashley in her book Firefly: Ashley’s Light.