My earthly father Erling Itland, my brother Arnar Itland and his wife Oddfrid. I almost missed them, due to the recent disturbance in the force.

I had believed, or at least fervently hoped, that the string of unlikely coincidences would come to a halt now that the Galaxy Tab was in my grubby hands. Not quite so. Remember what I wrote on Saturday, when I had moved the SIM card from the mobile phone to the tablet? “People who know me well enough to call me, know me well enough not to. They will instead send a mail or, failing that, a text message.” Yes, that is how it has been so far this year, and some time before that, if I remember correctly. Not this weekend though.

For the first time in so long that I don’t remember last time, someone unexpectedly called my cell phone. On Sunday evening. I was probably out walking, but in any case, I did not hear the tablet ring. (I assume it rings when you phone it, because it can be used as a mobile phone. Headset strongly recommended.) So, after hundreds of days of not getting a call while I carried my phone on me pretty much everywhere except in the shower, the day after I stopped wearing it everywhere, it rings. The chance is, obviously, one to a couple hundred or so. Not a miracle, but extremely suspicious given the string of unlikely events before. Just saying.

***

The person who called was my older brother Arnar, who wanted to visit me together with his wife and our earthly father. I have three older brothers, actually; Arnar is the saintly one. Luckily he is also the one who has a lot of children, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the aforementioned wife. I dare say there was no coercion involved in the mass production of offspring, certainly not from his side. And it has paid off handsomely: Several of the children have grown up to become awesome. Twinkling lights in the gene pool and all that.

Anyway, I found the “missed call” messages on the phone the next morning. It turns out that the three of them had made their way to Riverview and found it deserted, then a neighbor had helped them find out where I had moved (well done, neighbor). So they came here, and talked with the lady upstairs, but did not find me. -_-

Luckily, they had some time tonight as well, so they stopped by a couple hours. It seems to be about ten years since I have seen my brother and his wife. I was not aware that it was quite that long, but I knew it was close to that. The father has been here on the south coast once or twice since, as have the other two brothers with family. If Mohammad will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammad, evidently.

The amusing part was that we interacted pretty quickly as if no time had passed. Of course, much time has passed, and I at least have changed a lot lately. But we did not talk about that.

They thought I looked the same as I did 10 years ago, but that is not actually true: My hairline has been steadily receding. It now looks like Arnar’s did 10 years ago. In fact, we seem to grow more and more alike physically with each passing year. However, unlike me he can still eat fat. In fact, they all did so with great enthusiasm, having brought eggs and butter and borrowing my frying pan.

In any case, it was a welcome visit, and I am glad they had this extra day so I did not miss them just because I made another assumption. It was that close, and it is not certain that we are going to all meet again in this life. I am fine with that, really, in the sense that I don’t feel I have things I need to do or undo between us before we leave this world. But I certainly enjoyed their company. As I have said before, my family would have been my friends if we lived in the same part of the country. But we don’t. To some degree, I guess, we don’t even live in the same world. (For instance, they don’t live in the English-speaking world, as my brother pointed out in passing.) They seemed quite happy with their lives, though, and so am I.