You know, I'll bet there are quite a lot of us out here who would like to thank that guy as well.

Also, in the unlikely event you haven't seen it yet, Bob has this today: "Blessed are those who tolerate the ambiguity of facts, that they may penultimately reveal principles, and principles that they may ultimately reveal their Origin."

I suppose amidst all the cautions to not "do too much," your experience must have you a little inspired to be certain that you do not do too little.

Here's to doing just the right amount. Welcome back.

There are events that never quite seem coincidental, even though we label them such. The hard-core materialist would simply say that even high-improbability events can happen. I tend to think that they don't "just happen." Without being forced or determined, they get a little help along the way.

He who knew us in the womb guides each step.

My own suspicion is that nothing "just happens".

I call those "God's little jokes or tap on the shoulder"..."I'm still here , just in case you forgot. I knew this would put a smile on your face"

Yes, my agnostic husband thinks I'm nutty too. There are NO coincidences , I always tell him.

So glad you are out and about Gerard!

I don't know you. We've never met. But, we've had a similar health event and thus share fightingly similar experiences in climbing each rung. I've concluded total agreement with the aforementioned enough to re-state it: "There are NO coincidences." It is funny how life is; it is even funnier how it isn't. Relish ever moment.

You are blessed.

"His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone." Job

But you know, I bet that guy walked a little taller after you thanked him, too. And heck, maybe stopping him to talk to you kept him out of the way of his own accident.

But mostly it's great that you saw him, and thanked him. It's great that the world is small, and that a city is full of people we know. We need each other. No man is an island.

Perhaps he's an angel.

Karma. It's sweet! Most of the time.

Keep moving, but not too much.

"At that precise second he comes through the door of the Neptune into the concert.... I take one look and know the man as well as I know my brother. This man was my "respiratory therapist." His was the first face I saw on waking from my coma. "

A signpost and stark reminder during your re-entry back to life.

What a gift.

Very glad to see you are back. Things always happen for a reason, even if we don't see it at the time.

Your chance meeting at the concert was your opportunity to show gratitude and not just to feel it.

Gratitude is one of God's greatest gifts. It's a gift to the recipient but unexpectedly also to the giver.

Take care.

I am so glad you are well and we will have more time to spend together. Stay fearless here and in your life, because as I was told when I was a younger man, the only easy day was yesterday.

You missed the last third of a Richard Thompson concert? Man, you must have been shook up

It means something to you. And it means something to us. At a minimum. And that's a lot!

I'm glad you had this experience.

Glad to hear you're doing better, and prayers for your continued recovery, Gerard.

Slowly and patiently is challenging, no doubt -- but it sure beats the alternative.

"Negative capability...is being capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." ~ John Keats

It, all of it, starting atleast on the 13th, but probably way before - maybe it was a December day decades ago - it is all supposed to have meaning. I love how the treads which are our days are woven together with those of others around us. It seems to me that we participate in something majestic, too big for our little eyes. It's neat to "wonder" with you. It's neat that you share.

Often, "I don't know" is the best answer, and the only answer. The fun part is getting comfortable with, and keeping a look out for some semblance of an answer.

Quite a story, Gerard!

When my infant son was in ICU, I saw in the dark the white shapes of nurses who seemed to float soundlessly from one infant to another. Once in a while I'd hear a strangled breathing. A nurse would come to the baby, pull a plug of mucous out of its throat (saving its life), and float away.

Come the morning, they'd be be jabbering as though they hadn't done anything special.

Gerard, perhaps the meaning was for him to hear, "thank you".

In more than a decade of working ICU, I only had the pleasure of meeting one patient (and his lovely wife and child) later and their heartfelt thanks is one of the brightest memories of those chaotic years.

People work ICU for a variety of reasons, some of them simply because of the pay differential or the flexible hours, some, like me, worked ICU because of a deep need to "set things right"; it meant that as long as I was helping save others, I was OK.

Whatever their reasons, people who work ICU will all say, no one does it for accolades, but when you get to meet someone whose life you've saved, it is the sort of thing that not only lifts your spirits then, it is one of those treasured memories to recall years later.

Perhaps, in another sense, it was something that helped you. Gratitude is one of the noblest of our emotions, isn't it!

I read the post and wept, yes wept. I'm grateful for your honesty about "what does it mean?" I apparently inhabit a parallel universe, in that I also recently asked that question.

I'm mid-fifties, have never had much use or need for "modern medicine," but choose to work IT at a hospital for altruistic reasons. Then in APR2014 *I* was diagnosed with cancer.

Those same doctors, nurses, and clinicians that I'd served and respected now cared for me and respected me as a person. The very people that I walked by for years, sharing a "good morning" and a smile now held my very life and future in their hands.

Oh, and did I mention that my world-class care cost me ~$100 because I work for the hospital? Do I think a benevolent and kind God planned the whole thing? Yes, I most assuredly do.

Did I thank my caregivers for their efforts? Most assuredly! And now I've returned to work, walking by those same people, still saying "good morning" and smiling. I very much recognize that my doing so continues to say "thank you," providing them a daily reminder that what they do matters.

Bottom line, hold fast to that "not-really-a-chance-encounter!" It *does* mean something for you, that caregiver, and many others.