Readers of three years’ standing may remember a post that spins off from my volunteer job as the secretary of our local cemetery association to contemplation of our human struggle to appreciate our lives, www.constancegemmett.com/every-every-minute/. If not, it’s a suitably autumnal piece you may enjoy, pertinent to both our current state of affairs and the story below.

Last week I was fulfilling my duties as secretary by showing a couple the available cemetery plots for purchase. Masked and at a distance, we accomplished our goal, wished each other well, and parted company.

Today, I received an email from one of the pair, promising a funny story, which in part read:

“Constance it was great meeting you on Saturday.  Thank you for facilitating our purchase.  Here is my funny story……..  I like to read…and so I started…a reading journal a few years ago.  Well now that I have retired, I have been reading a lot more and had a whole stack of books to enter.  I started writing one in and I noticed that the author’s name was Constance Emmett.  I had really enjoyed it ( Heroine of Her Own Life).  I noticed the author’s name and thought ‘What are the chances……..?’  I googled the name and what did I come up with?”

The googling confirmed that the masked woman selling cemetery plots was indeed the same person as the author of Heroine Of Her Own Life, yours truly. Finding this a delightful coincidence, I thanked her for both telling me and for enjoying the book. Meeting someone out of the blue who has both read and enjoyed Heroine Of Her Own Life is sheer bliss.