MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM
              Copyright, Guy Gannett Communications, Inc., 1997

DATE: Sunday, August 31, 1997               EDITION: CITY
PAGE: 1G           SECTION: HOME & FAMILY
QUOTE: "We firmly believe that coincidences are much more than simple
       accidents or quirks of fate. To us, coincidences are blessings."
From
       the book, "Small Miracles"
SOURCE: By Joanne Lannin Staff Writer

 

THE FORCES THAT BROUGHT WANDA
VERASSI AND FAMILY TOGETHER ARE HARD TO FIGURE

Pat Buckley had a funny feeling about the couple as she saw them walk across the University of Southern Maine's Portland campus one Saturday afternoon in June. She was on her way to Luther Bonney Hall to run her monthly adoption support group meeting. As she passed the couple, she said to herself, ``I bet they'll be coming to our meeting today.'' Once inside, Buckley saw the familiar faces of people who attended the meeting every month. But there was one new face among those seated in the circle of chairs, an older man dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase. They all were about to witness an amazing coincidence.

``I get shivers thinking about it still,'' Buckley says. ``Nothing like this has ever happened.''

Yet some would hesitate to call what happened that afternoon a coincidence, believing instead that events unfold as they are meant to, to teach us lessons or answer our prayers. This belief in the spiritual nature of ``coincidence'' is given voice in books such as ``The Celestine Prophecy'' and TV shows such as ``Touched by an Angel,'' whose popularity attests to the hope of a power greater than humans. A book published this spring, ``Small Miracles,'' compiles a number of amazing incidents - coincidences that changed lives or taught valuable lessons. In its fourth printing, it has sold more than 150,000 copies, says one of its co-authors, Yitta Halberstam.

``We firmly believe that coincidences are much more than simple accidents or quirks of fate,'' Halberstam and Judith Levanthal write in ``Small Miracles.'' ``To us, coincidences are blessings . . . They are acts of God.''

Peter Jensen and Helen Slocum were walking around outside Luther Bonney Hall, trying to remember the room number of the adoption support group meeting. They'd forgotten to take the newspaper with the meeting notice, but they figured they'd find a sign pointing the way once they got to campus. After walking around for what seemed like an hour, they went back to Jensen's apartment in South Portland to get the paper. Once there, Jensen didn't feel like going out again. He figured they could call the adoption support facilitator and get the advice they needed over the phone. But Slocum felt compelled to return. She lives in Vermont and had stayed in Portland two days beyond a business appointment so they could attend the meeting.

Slocum and Jensen had been high school sweethearts 31 years ago. But they hadn't seen each other or talked since 1984. Slocum had returned to Portland in May, looking for Jensen and hoping he could help her search for the daughter they'd given up for adoption. She had started to search alone for her daughter in the mid-1980s, without success. When she moved to Vermont in 1986, she gave up the search, leaving her new address on file with the state adoption registry in case her daughter ever tried to find her. But in early May this year, she began searching again in earnest Her father had died in March, and she'd begun to realize how precious and short life is. She needed to know what had happened to the child she'd borne when she was 15. When she contacted Jensen in May, she found out that he had recently gotten a personal computer and was combing the Internet for information on how to conduct a search.

``I'll drive back,'' she told Jensen. So they got back in the car and drove back over the bridge to USM. Inside Room 410 at Luther Bonney Hall, Bob Trawick, the man with the briefcase, was speaking. He told the group he had come to the support group meeting that day to get some advice. He and his wife had lived in Westbrook 30 years ago but moved to Chicago for his job with Prudential Insurance. They'd decided in April to return to Maine to retire. And though they lived in South Paris now, the adoption support group in Portland was the only one he could find. Trawick told the group that his adopted daughter, Wanda Verassi, had just turned 31. Now married and living in Manhattan, she had written her adoptive parents a poignant letter in mid-May, explaining that she needed to search for her birth mother, despite her love and devotion to the parents who raised her. Trawick told the group that he was so touched by the letter that he decided to help her in her search.

He gave the group some information about his daughter. He said she was born on April 27, 1966, at Boston Lying-in Hospital (now Brigham and Women's Hospital) and that they'd adopted her in Portland about a week after her birth. As he finished speaking, the couple that Buckley had seen before the meeting walked in. Jensen and Slocum felt sheepish to be a half-hour late for the meeting. But Buckley welcomed them graciously, saying, ``I knew you two were coming.''

Slocum felt compelled to sit across from the man in the suit and tie.

``There was something about him,'' she said. ``I felt drawn to him.''

She and Jensen took turns speaking. They told the group they'd had a daughter when she was 15 and he was 17, 31 years ago. Slocum said she'd had the baby at Boston Lying-In Hospital. They told the group that she brought the baby home and then gave her up for adoption in Portland nine days after she was born. As Slocum and Jensen talked about the child they gave up, Buckley and the other regulars in the room realized there were similarities in the two stories they'd just heard.

One of the group members asked Slocum what year her daughter had been born.

``Nineteen sixty-six,'' she replied.

``What month?''

``April.''

``What day?''

``The 27th.''

The room became deadly quiet as Trawick took over the questioning. Trawick knew that Wanda's birth mother had knit her a pair of white booties and a sweater. He asked Slocum if she had made anything for her daughter in the weeks before the birth. Slocum said she had knit a white sweater and a pair of booties.

``My wife still has the clothes,'' Trawick said.

``I looked at him and thought that was a really weird thing to say,'' Slocum says.

``Everything was happening so quickly. I was so stunned.'' Trawick knew his daughter had been a big baby, over nine pounds when she was born. He asked Slocum her baby's weight. She said it was nine pounds, 13 ounces. The final piece of information - the one that made Trawick jump up and lead the group to the phone in the hall to call his daughter - was Helen's last name, Slocum. Trawick asked Helen and Peter, who had revealed only their first names at this point, to write down their names and phone numbers. Trawick looked at the piece of paper and ``all of a sudden a piece of my memory opened up.'' He recalled that when the Trawicks had signed the adoption papers for their daughter back in 1966, the court clerk had held his hand over the name of the baby so the Trawicks couldn't see it. But the clerk had turned his head for a moment and his hand had slipped, revealing the words ``Baby Slocum.'' The next day, the adoption papers in probate court confirmed what Trawick, Jensen, Slocum and the support group members already knew. They had completed Wanda's search for her through one chance meeting - less than a month after Wanda and her birth mother had decided to start searching for each other.

They finally met in July at the home of Wanda's parents, Bob and Bunny Trawick, in South Paris. The reunion was a happy one. Wanda and Helen laughed when they noticed they were wearing identical sandals from L.L. Bean. If they had any doubts that they were related, they were dispelled by finding how similar are their mannerisms and speech inflections.

``We feel it was destiny,'' says Jensen. ``We feel like Wanda was the beacon. She put out the energy that brought us together.''

Says Wanda Verassi: ``Everybody says it was divine intervention, that it was meant to be.

That's how it feels to me.''