When I was about ten, I choked at a potluck dinner in the basement of Waynesville United Methodist Church. The entrée was ham, and I was eating it because you have to eat what you're given, especially when you're the preacher's kid. I had already finished the delicious casseroles that the ladies of our church had brought to share. I wasn't sitting with my parents, maybe because this was a work event, so I was surrounded by nice church people. Nobody was emotionally close to me because we moved every two to four years and I never bothered to get attached.

The bite of salty ham I was chewing was mostly gristle. I gave up chewing it and tried to swallow. It seemed best to get it over with quickly. The wad of gristle went halfway down and lodged there. I tried to cough it up but it was stuck. I tried again to swallow. Then I tried to breathe. Nothing.

If I had been sitting by my mom, I would have grabbed her arm. I didn't feel comfortable grabbing the nice people sitting around me. I couldn't ask for help because I was unable to make the tiniest sound. I started to panic. What could I do? I must have put my hand on my throat. I don't remember.

The next thing I knew, someone struck my back hard and the gristle flew into my mouth. I sucked in air then, the most beautiful feeling. I heard exclamations around me. I started shaking. I pulled the gristle out of my mouth and set it delicately on the plate where it sat there, chewed and disgusting, but still intact.

"Do you want to go home?" One of the ladies asked.

I didn't look at her, but I nodded.

I never saw the man who saved me. If you should ever ask my dad his name, he'll give it immediately and forcefully. After all, this was the man who saved his little girl's life. Still, I can't connect the name to a face so I never remember it.

What brought that man to the church basement that day? What events of his life brought him to that denomination, that town, that part of the world? Some people would call him a guardian angel. They might say God had brought him there. I don't know about that.

I will commit to this one thing. Whatever events happened in this man's life, good or bad, those events brought him to me. He wouldn't have saved me if he hadn't been there.

I have a theory. Nothing solid, certainly not scientific, more a thought, I guess, than a theory. God may or may not have had a cosmic plan for that man, but He made the best of that man that day. He makes the best of us all every day, just who we are.