A couple of weeks ago I shared with you what will probably (hopefully) be the most traumatic event that I’m ever likely to encounter, when I was in Kathmandu and experienced the devastating earthquake two years ago that took nearly 9,000 lives and destroyed thousands of homes and ancient monuments. If you didn’t catch that story you can read it here.

What I didn’t mention though is another part of the story, a part that really baffled me, and in fact still does baffle me. It’s something that defies explanation with logic but is a perfect example of intuition, connection and the ultimate realisation that some things are just, I guess, destined to happen.

As you would have read in my previous account I flew to Nepal in April 2015 to take part in my second trek to Everest Base Camp, a trek that had its own difficulties and then I was still there when the earthquake hit.

What I’m writing here for you still defies explanation and it comes in 2 parts.

Firstly: My eldest daughter and her partner had taken me to Perth airport to see me off on my adventure. Now, she had dropped me off at the airport on numerous occasions, she’d seen me off to Nepal a couple of years earlier for my first trek, she’d waved me goodbye, she’d turned away and gone home – as you do when you see someone off on a holiday they’re looking forward to.

On this occasion though what she did was highly out of character. She burst into tears.

I didn’t know about this until I’d returned home but her partner told me that she was sobbing as she saw me go up the escalator and out of sight. She didn’t know why she’d done that and she couldn’t control it, the tears just fell.

Something deep within her just knew that there was something amiss.

The second part occurred after I returned from that experience.

My second daughter was living in Melbourne at the time (I’m in Perth). A couple of weeks after I got back it was Mother’s Day here in Australia and she was looking around for something to send me as a Mother’s Day gift.

She went into a particular shop and was looking at a necklace that she thought I might like, she wasn’t 100% sure so she went off to do her food shopping. It was late in the afternoon and as she was wandering around the supermarket she thought ‘if the shop is still open when I go back I’ll get the necklace for mum.’

It was and she did.

She posted it off to me and when I opened that parcel I burst into tears.

Now if you remember I said in my last account that on the morning of the earthquake I’d popped across the road from the hotel to do a bit of shopping. One of the things that I bought was a bracelet for myself. I don’t wear bracelets often but I just liked this one.

The necklace that my daughter had sent me matched that bracelet , it was identical – and she had no idea that I’d even bought the bracelet.

I can’t explain either of those events any more than I can figure out why I had to experience what I did. Suffice to say that the world and whoever or whatever you believe is in charge of these things – God, Buddha, Fate, Destiny, Mother Nature – works in mysterious ways, and I am inclined to think that my experience was planned for a specific purpose.

I experienced the terror and the trauma of that day and its aftermath, and from it I’ve grown.