I met my wife purely by fate

Until I was 41 years of age, I was a very lonely man. I had waited too long to find a woman that I could spend the rest of my life with. Christmas was the worst time of the year for me because there was no one close to me that I could share it with. There were beautiful and intelligent and very nice women around me but they were already going with other men and I don’t cut the grass of other men’s lawns, so to speak. My friends told me, “Hey! Some day, a great woman that is just right for you will come along. But it appeared to me that none of them would ever come along.

Perhaps I was too fussy in looking for a mate. There were five attributes that I was seeking in a mate and I would settle for three of them, if I found a possible mate who had them. The first was that she had to be reasonably pretty. I didn’t want my friends to laugh at me because they thought I was blind. She didn’t have to have a great figure however; I wasn’t really looking for a fat woman. She had to be reasonably intelligent. I didn’t want a woman who would say, “Uhh?” every time I asked a simple question. She had to be compatible in bed. I didn’t want a woman who would cross herself every time we finished making love. She also had to be a great mother of my children. Of course, I would have to wait until we were married before I could make that determination.

Some women I went with were great in bed but terribly argumentative. Some were very pretty but extremely fat. Some others had nice personalities but often they acted stupid. Some were very intelligent but terrible in bed. I just couldn’t find one woman who had at least three of the attributes I was looking for in women. As I said earlier, those women that did, were already spoken for.

I once prayed to God for help and in my prayer I said, “I will forgo any riches that I might acquire in life if you would send me a mate I could truly love.” If there is a God, he must have heard my prayer. I never acquired any riches in my life however; but I did find a mate that had all five attributes I was looking for. How we met in September 1975 is very strange indeed.

That year, I was attending a United Nations Congress at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. My speech dealt with the UN’s proposal to create a Transnational Tribunal on Terrorism. I had spoken about the Japanese Red Army terrorists who for the most part, were women. After my speech, the head of security approached me with a big smile and said, “Whatever you do, Mr. Batchelor, don’t pick up any Japanese women while you are here. They could be members of the Japanese Red Army terrorists.” I replied, “I have no intentions of picking up any Japanese women.”

Two days later, I was at a bus station and ready to take a bus to France for a three-day break so that I could climb on Mount Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. The man at the ticket wicket suggested that I catch the train as it would get me there quicker. I ran up the street and when I arrived in the train station, there in front of me was the woman I was looking for. Mind you, I didn’t know that at that particular moment. If fact at that moment, not only was that woman not the woman I wanted to be with, she was actually a woman I was trying to hide from. You see, she was a young twenty-four-year-old Japanese woman.

When we got onto the train, she sat at one end and I sat at another end. I was nervous because she was always staring at me. We had to switch trains at the border of France and Switzerland so I went into the small washroom at the station and when I left it, there was the woman a few steps from the door as if she was waiting for me. I didn’t know if she was following me so I walked around the station and she followed me wherever I went. When the second train arrived, I went to the lead car and she too went to that car. I got out and walked on the platform until I arrived at the second car. She too entered that car. I immediately got out and went to the third car. She did the same thing. Now I was nervous but what really made me nervous was that she sat immediately across the aisle from me. If she was a Japanese Red Army terrorist, I was doomed.

There were two girls from Ontario sitting across from me and while I was telling them jokes, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the Japanese girl was laughing at the punch lines. I leaned over the aisle and asked, “Do you speak English?” She smiled and replied, “Yes I do.” I asked, “Do you understand my jokes?” She laughed and then smiled, “They’re very funny?”

The rest is history. From then on, we were together as soul mates. She came to Canada with me and six months later, I married her. At the time of this writing, that was thirty-three years ago. On Father’s Day, June 21, 2009, my wife, Ayako and I, and our two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Michelle and their spouses and my four granddaughters, were together as one very happy family. Since my wife and I were married, we have traveled around Europe, Africa, South America, North America and South Asia together. I learned that those who travel alone; travel the fastest but they who travel alone, also end up being the worst off for their travels.

If there is a God, he certainly answered my prayer. I never became rich but as sure as God made little green apples, I had eventually found my mate.

Ohh! You are wondering why she was following me on the train. I wondered that also so recently, I asked her. I hinted that it was because of my good looks. She laughed. I then suggest that it was because of my magnificent figure. I did have an hour glass figure back in 1975. She laughed even louder. Alas, in the past thirty-three years, the sand has all shifted.

Finally the truth came out. She began; “Do you remember when we were in the train station in Geneva, and a train conductor was walking towards you and you asked him what platform you were to go to in order to catch your train?” I replied, “Yes.”

She continued, “And you remember that he told you and you thanked him and then you walked along the main platform and then onto the specific platform that you were to be on to catch your train?” Again I replied, “Yes.”

Then she said, “Well, as you know, I wanted to go to the same town you were going to so that I too could go partway up Mount Blanc but I, like you, didn’t know what platform to go on. I heard you ask the question but I didn’t hear the conductor’s reply. But I knew you did and since we were going to the same destination and you knew how to get there, I decided that I would follow you all the way and never let you out of my sight in doing so.”

It’s fate, of that, there can be no doubt. All good things come to those who wait. I waited a long time but the wait was well worth it. Since then I have never been lonely.

I entered this world alone and for some time, I lived it while I was alone. I will leave it alone but I know that when I leave it, I leave behind, a family that loves me and what greater ending of one’s life can anyone hope for than that?