Shortly after my daughter married, her husband, knowing my father was in the Navy during WWII as was his deceased grandfather, brought out some photos taken during his grandfather's Navy days. One he showed me was his grandfather's graduating platoon photo. He pointed out his grandfather among the 60 or so sailors. In my lifetime, I had only seen one other photo of a Navy platoon - my father's.

I immediately noticed the training instructor was the same man, in the same pose, who was in my father's photo. Then I noticed another man in the front row - wasn't this a sailor my father had pointed out in his photo? I looked at the information imprinted on the photo - Graduating Platoon Oct 17, 1940. Wait a minute! This was the same date as was on my father's photo! I quickly looked in the area I remembered my father was in his photo and remember saying "And there's Daddy!!"

By the look on his face, I think my son-in-law thought I was joking at first until he came over and looked, too.

My father did not remember the name or anything about him but said he remembered the face. They were from the same state but distant parts of it and did not know each other. They both enlisted about a year before WWII began. They were assigned to different ships and fought the war in different oceans and their paths never crossed again.

I think it is amazing that 64 years later their grandchildren met and married and their great granddaughter will have a photo with two of her great grandfathers in it although they didn't really know each other.

I'm not much of a believer in signs, but maybe this is one - a sign that this marriage was meant to be.