Affirming Serendipity

by Destiny Lopez (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Netherlands

Chifon, my mother’s childhood best friend, was a household legend for me growing up. When my passion for dance took off, Mami encouraged it because Chifon was a successful background dancer. When I cried during my first breakup, Mami told me I should be like Chifon’s mom who never fixed her happiness on a man. And when I decided I wanted to travel, Mami suppressed her overprotective fears because she had seen Chifon’s global journeys on Facebook. I had never met the woman and my mother hadn’t spoken to her in ages but still, Chifon was the prototype Mami repeatedly pushed on me. Mami and Chifon met in Kindergarten. They grew up in the same neighborhood, spending nights making up dances to Janet Jackson and teasing their hair. “We were inseparable,” my mother always told me, “...until your father came along.” Mami fell in love with dad as a preteen and became pregnant with me during high school. The distraction of her first love led to the chaos of motherhood and with lives so different from each other, Mami and Chifon drifted apart. But it was obvious my mother carried her friend in her heart daily, with an admiration she didn’t have for anyone else. I was spending Summer 2019 in Berlin, as a requirement for my graduate program, when I decided I wanted to visit Amsterdam. I added it to my list for the same reasons as most millennials— the canals were the perfect background for my next Instagram post, the Anne Frank house was a must see and, of course, those “cafes” were a hit. Amsterdam was as welcoming as I anticipated it to be and walking its cobblestone streets felt like a dream. Mami texted me throughout the trip with excitement since my great-grandfather had Dutch roots in the Netherlands and my visit felt like an ode to our ancestry. But the true full circle moment occurred as I was stuffing my face with poffertjes and my mother sent me a screenshot of Chifon’s Facebook post. She was in Amsterdam at the same time I was. “She said she wants to meet up with you if you can,” my mother texted me after messaging Chifon that I was in the same country as her. I immediately agreed, eager to meet the woman I had heard so much about all my life. I met Chifon outside of a restaurant where she was having dinner with a friend. We hugged briefly and settled into small talk for a good hour or so. Throughout our conversation I recognized the values my mother had wanted me to inherit from her beloved childhood friend. Chifon was brave, outgoing, intuitive and funny in all the ways my mother had insisted I be. Our union felt familiar, as if I were catching up with her exactly where she and Mami left off 25 years ago. In the middle of us cracking up at a joke, Chifon’s face changed with awe. “You even laugh like her,” she said to me as she reminisced about my mother. Noticing the sentimental tone taking over, I told Chifon how much my mother had exemplified who she wanted me to be by mentioning Chifon throughout my childhood. Tears welled up in Chifon’s eyes as she spoke of her love for my mom and how much she saw of her in me. It was evident that the women had seen the best in each other and that my upbringing was heavily influenced by the sisterhood they shared. We sent a selfie to my mom who responded with joy from miles away. I think we were all aware of how meaningful the moment was but didn’t quite know how to put it into words. I had anticipated Amsterdam would bring me days of walking anonymously through crowds and nights of dancing with people I had just met. I looked forward to the food I would try and the memories I would collect. But never did I expect to encounter the serendipity that affirmed I was exactly where I was meant to be— seeing the world and experiencing those Chifon moments, just as my mother had always wanted me to.