A Providential Encounter with my Cousin Toni Kizer

One day while I sat in the lobby of the Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson airport waiting to catch a plane to Memphis, a lady sitting across from me grabbed my attention. She very much resembled the lady in a photograph that my mother had, a lady who kinda resembles me who'd graduated with honors from her alma mater. 

I approached her. I told her that I didn't mean to stare, but that she looked familiar. I told her who I was. When I told her my mother's name, she extended her arms and hugged me. She was/is my cousin, Toni Kizer. My mother and her father are first cousins. My mother was named after her grandmother, Aunt Florida. 

What is really amusing about our encounter is the fact that she is an engineer who tackles the issue of employee safety at the company for which she's employed and she's a writer and blogs on this platform, like me. It apparently runs in the family! I had no idea that she had started a blog a few months ahead of me when I began working on this particular blog of mine, which addresses employment issues. 

Clearly, the good Lord purposed our meeting.

The fact that she'd graduated from Emory University corroborated this. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Harllee Branch, Jr. who had been a trustee at Emory had taken special interest in me after his wife showed him excerpts from manuscripts that I'd written and shared during a book talk at the retirement community in Buckhead where they resided and where I was employed as a concierge...

Toni and I exchanged numbers and planned subsequent meet-ups that never occurred, though we were regularly conversing over the phone. We were both workaholics, and she traveled in and out of town. She additionally moved to Orlando, Florida (land of Disney)* for a span before returning to Atlanta, and I would eventually return to Memphis permanently. *Ironically, the first cousin of one of my ex beaus played for the Orlando Magics.

Though I have no interest in resuming residency in Atlanta, I am really hoping to some day get around to collaborating with my cuz on our shared interests in improving the work force. Perhaps we can further  delve into some family research to determine the source of our love of writing.