Superstition and Science

As a scientist, I am trained to disregard coincidences. Rather, I look for causality and cherish its contribution to establishing associations, explaining them, predicting or even preventing unwanted events. Correlations are just coincidences, and I have taught for years that correlation is a technical term for superstition. A black cat in the driveway….

… A friend, who has lost a number of family members over the past few years, wrote to me this morning. She had read the story about “Broken Wings” and told me that she believes coincidences are not just that. But, that coincidences are there for a reason. That they also morph into signs and signals from some other dimension. That she had interpreted a number of coincidences as communication from the dear ones she lost.

On my way to work, a sunny day for a pleasant drive, I suddenly relived a moment from more than 40 years ago. I do not know how much of a fraction of time it takes to relive such memories. I do not know how one can do so and drive at the same time. Yet, I know that I had not remembered that moment for the past four decades.

… I was 8 years old, and it was August in the Lebanese mountains. It was a cool night, and my grandfather was about to shut the window to the bedroom he, my sister and I shared. “Oh, this is bad omen!” he exclaimed. I looked to where he was pointing and there was a very large black moth stuck to the shutter. Wings wide open, the size of a month-old sparrow.
That night, my grandfather died in bed, my sister and I watching him leave us, slowly. We were horrified.

… On July 17, almost to the day 40 years later, I came back home from the hospital where Ani was. She was doing well that day. She even tried to get out of the ICU bed and take a few steps with the oxygen tank next to her, like her new puppy on a leash. I was pleased with her state. As I pulled into the driveway, there was the most unattractive creature, next to the house wall. A turtle of some sort. Very large, prehistoric looking. It looked centuries old! It was at least 30 pounds and three feet long. It was covered with huge scales. It had a beak like a parrot.
My son ran into the house, got Ani’s digital camera and took a few shots. I called Ani to tell her about it. “Dad, you are making this up!” I promised to bring the pictures to her next day to prove her wrong. Meanwhile a neighbor helped us get the turtle into a large plastic bin and he carried it over to the adjacent woods. “Alligator turtle,” he said “probably got lost.”
Next day, I went to see Ani. From behind the oxygen mask she asked about the picture. I showed it to her. She could not talk that morning. She just looked at me and tried to smile. Ani died an hour later.

…. It was morning after Ani died, and my sister-in-law and I were looking out of the window, without speaking. It was very early in the morning and we had hardly slept that night. Suddenly, I noticed a single day-lilly that had opened. I was so taken by the moment that my sister-in-law asked “Are you ok?” So I told her a story.
Ani loved day-lilies, but we did not have any planted in our backyard. Last fall, Ani planted day-lilly bulbs under a tree. In June, the leaves were out and we had a plant! But no flowers. The only flower that plant gave was on the morning after Ani died. A bright yellow, proud flower. I cut it and put it upon Ani’s chest in the casket. The plant died soon after, without ever flowering again.

…. Ani was a swimmer. She loved going to our lake house in Virginia. She swam when it was cold; she swam when it was oppressingly hot. When in the hospital, she set her goal as swimming again. “When I get well, first thing we do is to go to the lake house, yes Dad?” Yes, I promised that to her, but could not keep my promise. Ani never made it out of the ICU.
A week ago, we decided to go to the lake house. A short trip, just for the week end. Mostly for maintaining the grounds and being away for a while. As I was loading the van, a butterfly came by. It flew over the van a couple of time, and then sat on the concrete driveway, next to the van. First, I ignored it. It was just a butterfly. Then I was taken by the moment, by the metaphor__ the butterfly is the official emblem of Lupus foundations and research. So, I called Janet. She came out and saw the butterfly fly over the van, out of the garage, and back onto the driveway. It sat next to the van. We looked at each other and almost simultaneously said “Ani wants to come to the lake…” Janet even put her hand under the butterfly and it perched itself upon her finger.
We tried to, in silence, tell each other that we are making things up; that we are misinterpreting coincidences. Yet, we could not resist the suggestive powers of the moment.
Then we left the butterfly there, and we left for the lake. Two days later, when we came back, the butterfly was dead on the deck, in the back of our house.

… I am trained as a scientist to ignore black moths on window shutters. I am inclined to believe that the day-lily plant was able to produce only one flower this summer. And I am sure that the turtle lost its way out of the woods, and by some coincidence found our driveway, on the hill.
But, as I prepare for my upcoming teaching sessions, I am having difficulty calling correlations superstition. I am also wondering if I will ever look at a butterfly the same way again….

September 8, 2005