Читать книгу It’s A Miracle: Real Life Inspirational Stories, Extraordinary Events and Everyday Wonders - Richard Thomas - Страница 8

Dana Herring and Dennis Dunbar first met in 1973 while attending high school in Los Angeles. At the time, they were just casual friends.

“After initially meeting Dana, I just felt that she had no interest in me,” remembers Dennis. “So I felt that it was just something that would not be worthwhile pursuing.”

“Dennis was going out with a friend of mine, and I was going out with another person,” recalls Dana. “It was just not convenient.”

But nine years later, Dennis and Dana met again, at the wedding of mutual friends. And this time, the chemistry between them was different.

“I thought he looked pretty handsome in his tuxedo,” says Dana. “There was an attraction that night at the wedding, and we talked for a long time. We ended up pretty much staying together that whole night at the wedding. And that was it.”

“We had a good time, and we just enjoyed each other’s company,” agrees Dennis.

Dana and Dennis began dating, and over the next few months their romance blossomed. As it became more serious, they made plans to go away together for Memorial Day weekend. But before he picked her up for their getaway, Dennis stopped by the home of his newlywed friends.

It was a decision that would change all his plans.

“This girl had come down from San Francisco,” Dennis recalls, “and they wanted to set me up with her. They knew that I was going out with Dana, but they probably didn’t realize how serious the relationship was at the time.

“They talked me into breaking my date with Dana,” Dennis says.

Dana, understandably, was quite upset. “I was upset because we did have plans. And, you know, he called at the last minute to cancel,” she says. “I was really angry at the time. I just hung up on him, and that was it.”

“She didn’t deserve that,” says Dennis. “And I felt like an idiot. I never talked to Dana after that.”

Dennis ended up marrying the woman who was his blind date that day. But after ten years together the marriage failed, and in 1997, Dennis was once again a bachelor.

At that time, Dennis owned his own pest control business, and on Labor Day 1997, he was sitting in his office, calling clients to confirm appointments for the following day.

“There was one customer in particular that I called, left a message that I’d be out tomorrow to take care of her account, left my name and my phone number like I always do, and said if there’s any problem call me back,” recalls Dennis. “The next day I went out to service the account, and for some weird reason, the customer had never gotten my message.”

But someone else had.

“I came home from out of town, checked my messages, and one of them struck me as strange,” remembers Dana, “because it was from a man, and he said, ‘Hello, Terry, this is Dennis Dunbar calling from Dunbar Pest Control.’ And I thought the voice sounded very familiar.”

“That evening the phone rang,” says Dennis, “and it turned out to be a girl who asked if this was the Dennis Dunbar who has a brother named Dan, which I do.”

Dana recalls, “And I said, ‘This is Dana Herring.’”

Dennis was shocked to hear from her, and asked how she got his number. “And she said, ‘Well, you called me,’” he remembers. “And it hit me, Wait a second! This other customer didn’t get the message I left. So I got my customer’s card and I repeated the number, which had a 960 prefix. At which point Dana said, ‘How funny. That’s very close to mine. Mine is 906.’”

He had transposed two numbers. “What a coincidence,” said Dennis.

“I was literally shaking,” he recalls.

“One of the first things she said after we chitchatted a bit,” Dennis remarks, “was, ‘If I remember it right, didn’t you stand me up?’ And I was like, ‘Well, but that was a long time ago. I hope you’re not still mad,’ “he chuckles.

“And he said, ‘You do remember what happened?’” says Dana. “And I said, ‘Yes, I do remember.’ I said, ‘You broke a date with me, and then you married her,’” she laughs.

Dennis told her about his divorce, and Dana revealed to him that she’d never gotten married.

“So we talked a little bit longer, and I was saying how weird this was,” Dennis says. “She said, ‘Well, if you like, you can give me a call sometime, and maybe we can get together.’” Dennis told her he’d love to, and that was the end of that conversation.

“When he called me the next day at my office, between ten and eleven in the morning, and my secretary said, ‘Dennis Dunbar is on the phone,’ I was shocked,” says Dana. “I was like, Well, gosh, he’s already calling? We set a date for Friday night, and he showed up with flowers, and we sat and talked for about four hours when we were supposed to go out to dinner.”

“I haven’t talked to somebody like the way I talk to Dana for years,” declares Dennis. “It just really felt good. It was completely different than any relationship I had ever been in…. It felt like it was meant to be.”

“We feel that we were brought together for a special reason,” Dana proclaims.

And thirteen months later, Dennis and Dana became husband and wife. For them, their marriage is nothing less than a miracle.

“The miracle is how the whole thing happened,” says Dana. “How he happened to transpose that one number and reach me of all people, out often million people in Los Angeles.”

“Timing was everything in this, because the area codes had already changed out there,” says Dennis. “If I had dialed that number two months later, I don’t think I ever would have run across Dana again.”

“I think I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life right now. I am just glowing,” says Dana.

“It’s heaven,” agrees Dennis. “You know, this is the person that I’m going to be with for the rest of my life, and I’m looking forward to it.”