Do you believe in fate or do you believe you can control your own destiny?

The first case I work at the funeral home all on my lonesome was for a young man ( according to paperwork ) who had died in traffic accident.

I did the paperwork, checked out a removal van, drove to the hospital ( look for the garbage cans I was told, and go through the doors.  That’s where the pathology labs and Morgue is.

And for Godsakes,  I was told, don’t go in through the front doors  And don’t park out front. ( Doi, I remember thinking)

I found him, got him on the gurney, zipped him up and took him to the Van and we drove back to the Funeral Home.

I helped put his face and skull back together.

And then I cleaned him up, dressed him. Fixed his hair and fussed over his tie.

The  Funeral Director who was training me checked said it was good work and told me to get ready to put him in the casket.

It was when I was ready to move him that I really looked at his face. I stopped. I stood back up and went back to his chart and looked for his name.

When I had the chance I went up front and checked the folder that was ready to take in when I met with the family.

I read the names.

It was true.

We were the same age and when we were six  years old he was my very first kiss. I saw him again just after we graduated from High School.

I was in California at a club called The Palace in Hollywood and I turned around and there he was. We chatted until his date showed up. It was a nice talk.

I didn’t seem him again until my first day as a Mortician’s Apprentice.

Was it fate? Was it Destiny?

Was the First Boy I kissed simply destined  to go out one night and forget to click his seatbelt and was he truly destined be thrown out of his car and have his poor mangled face rebuilt by the very first girl he kissed?

Was I really fated on my first day of work as a Mortician to embalm a nice kid who became a nice man and bought me a Sprite at The Palace and remembered on that night between sets how my little sister collected bees in a bag?

I don’t believe that  for a minute

I think when we step out our door we are faced with a million possibilities and we make decisions and from there we narrow the possibilities down to the moment – and for some of us, sometimes in that inexplicable moment,  we find ourselves looking  to the sky and crying out dramatically:

” Was it fate? Was it destiny? I don’t know, but this was magic. THIS WAS MEANT TO BE.”

People have written Epic poems and plays and movies based on that bullpucky.

You made those calls. You decided to turn left or right. You decided to say yes or no. With an entire Universe out there I doubt that any sort of being sat around and said,

” Gee, I think Anita Marie should meet this guy years later on an embalming table. And just for fun, let’s have her cat Frito die on the same day .”

Fate? Destiny?

How could you say we are really living if things are planned out for us? I mean if it’s all planned out why even bother to draw a breath?

 Fate or Destiny makes us slaves to the moment.

To all of our moments.

And in the end if it’s all about Fate and Destiny it wouldn’t matter if we show up to live our lives or not.

What a waste of perfectly good DNA in a Universe full of infinite possibilities that would be.