Kismet: When Hemophilia Strangers Meet

The world is a big place: over eight billion people and counting. Hemophilia is an extremely rare blood disorder: only an estimated 400,000 worldwide. What are the chances of two people with hemophilia meeting by chance in a far-away land?

It’s called by many names: kismet, fate, destiny, Providence, divine intervention, or for the scientifically-minded, a coincidence. What are the odds that my randomly chosen travel company off Facebook provided us with a great driver, out of many, whose close friend’s father is the leader of a hemophilia organization here in Morocco?

And yet, it happened.

And it’s happened before. On a trip to Russia to attend a hemophilia event, I sat at the back of a 450-seat plane that had a stop first in Frankfurt, Germany. As I sat in my seat way in the back, I introduced myself to the gentleman to my left, as we would spend the next seven hours together. He asked what I did for work, and when I told him, he thought for a moment, then said, “The only person I know who has a son with hemophilia lives in South Africa.” I asked, “Richard [name redacted]?” He almost drew back, shocked. “Yes!” Their wives went to college together. I smiled. Coincidence?

Another time I was flying home to Boston on a short flight from Philadelphia. A very cute young man, small and wiry, boarded the plane and said he was in the middle seat; I was in the aisle. As I started to get up, he insisted I stay, and he simply hopped right over me! We asked the usual, so what do you do for work? He said he was a magician. Now that’s different. He offered me some popcorn he was eating out of a bag. We munched on popcorn and when I told him what I did for work, he said he knew someone with hemophilia. I doubted it, but I said, tell me his name. I probably know him. I don’t’ think so, the young man replied, but told me his name. I said, I know him! He was my son’s camp counselor at Paul Newman’s Hole-in-the-Wall-Gang Camp in Connecticut. Small world?

In the mid 2000s I was traveling in Kenya, after attending to patients in Nairobi, working with the local hemophilia group, and meeting with physicians. Time for safari! I waited at the small, regional airport to take a little charter flight, a nine-seater or so, to the Masai Mara. This was a small airport with one airstrip. Waiting to board the plane was a gentleman, also traveling solo. We struck up a conversation and he said he was a doctor. I mentioned where I had been and what I had been doing, and he asked if I had been to Pakistan. Several times! And I name-dropped my best friend there, Dr. Tahir Shamsi, who created the first-ever bone marrow transplant program in Pakistan, who hosted me in his family home, and who helped many with hemophilia. The man looked shocked. “I went to school with him in the UK…” he said. Providence?

My dear friend Bob with hemophilia, now deceased, many years ago lived in Florida and he and his wife decided to downsize and move. First, they had to clear out their home. Too many items, and it was overwhelming. They randomly chose an organizer company out of the phone book. The woman who came over was attractive, smart and super organized. She said, Let’s start with the bookshelves. As she started to weed through their books, she stopped. What’s this? And she pulled out my book, Raising a Child with Hemophilia. Bob told her who I was and why he had that book.

She replied, That’s my sister-in-law.”

She and I had not spoken in years for reasons beyond our control. Now, she called me and we chatted for four hours. It was marvelous—and Christmas Eve. Several years later she died of heart failure, too young. Had she not met Bob, I might never have had the chance to chat with her. Divine?

My favorite such story does not involve hemophilia directly. I was in New York City around 2010 to meet with the National Hemophilia Foundation. I had first flown in the night before to meet with colleagues. Then in the morning took a yellow taxi, one of the 13,587 in NYC, to NHF’s office. I love chatting with limo and taxi drivers as they tend to be very interesting, diverse people. I suspected this driver was from Haiti and I asked. He was and I mentioned I had been there twice (for hemophilia-related work), so we had a lively and passionate chat about his home country. He dropped me off and six hours later I walked down to Penn Station to the taxi line and waited. When my turn came up, I opened the taxi door… there was the same driver. We both just stared, not believing. What were the odds? (Please, someone mathematically inclined…) We felt… something. Fate? Kismet?

He didn’t even say hi. He blurted out, “I’m playing this cab number in the lottery tonight!”

And I replied, “If you win, you have to share it with me!”

I am scientifically oriented, rational, love the universe, nature, and evolution. But I believe there are also other powers at play, if we only open up to the possibilities. It’s fun to see these unfold, and it often helps me in my humanitarian work. I look forward to more!