Yesterday delivered a year-end example of syncronicity, that apparently coincidental link between events that suggests their conjunction might not be wholly coincidental after all.

After we returned from our early morning walk, I made a hasty decision to locate a batch of old photos that included a couple of Darrow Aiona, who passed away just over a week ago. It took me a while to locate the files, tweak them in a photo editor, and then get them ready and posted online. With some cat interruptions, it took me longer than I expected.

The photos were taken at a party in Kaaawa honoring a friend and mentor, attorney Gil Johnston, who moved with his family to Chicago back in 1975. We got to know Gil and his late wife, Janice, when we were graduate students at the same time Janice had returned to school to earn a Ph.D.

We kept in contact with Gil over the years, stopping in Chicago to visit several times. But we haven’t seen his sons since they got themselves all grown up. Ben, the older son, is an emergency room physician in a town outside of Chicago. Iain, the younger son, is a founding partner in his own Chicago law firm, Johnston Greene LLC. We probably haven’t seen either of them in more than 25 or 30 years.

So here’s the eerie coincidence. After spending a couple of hours getting the photos of Gil online, I got around to checking my email. There was a message from Iain Johnston that had arrived a couple of hours earlier, right about the time I had gone in search of the photos of his dad. The message said Iain was in Haleiwa and heading up our coast on the way to the airport, and suggested stopping by for a short visit. I immediately called, but they were already in Kailua. Luckily, we had just enough time to meet in Kaneohe for a quick lunch before sending Iain, his wife, and daughter, off to the airport for their mid-afternoon flight to Kauai.

A coincidence, of course. But hearing from Iain out of the blue, just as I was working with Gil’s photos, provided a chicken-skin moment, nonetheless.