I often marvel at the intricate tapestry of daily events and the people we know. We're the weavers but sometimes lose sight of a thread when years later it gets picked up and takes center stage at a time we least expect it. That's what happened to me and Eleanor Ramrath Garner, an American girl who during World War II was a year above me in our high school, the Gertraudenschule in Berlin-Dahlem,
     I had relatives in America and kept thinking, now why couldn't Eleanor have been in my class. But then I had only myself to blame. If I had been better in school I wouldn't have been left back a year, and then she would have been in my class. Ah, well, I must have thrown my desire to meet her into the ether somehow for many years later, in the year 2000, while I was making plans to join my classmates in Berlin for our 50th high school reunion, my friend, Stella Busch-Witte, told me to get the book Eleanor's Story, An American Girl in Hitler's Germany, by Eleanor Ramrath Garner. I remembered Eleanor. I sent away for the book and mentioned it in my article about the reunion which  in 2005, I published on my website. While surfing the web Eleanor found out about me and that I live in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, the state she grew up in. On July 23, 2005 she called me and said, "Hi, this is Eleanor Ramrath Garner." I just couldn't believe it. Wow! How neat. How amazing. The world can be so wonderful! Eleanor and I have been talking on the phone a mile a minute, reminiscing and sharing our life stories.  "You saw the Zeppelin from your roof top in Berlin and I saw it in smithereens  on the ground in New Jersey," Eleanor told me. That was another common thread that revealed itself to us. "Yes," I said, "and how about this one: I noticed the red-breasted robin on your book jacket, both front and back, which was such a potent symbol for you in Berlin when it represented new life after the devastation and destruction of our city.  Driving to the hospital on the day of my surgery in June of 2002  a red-breasted robin just stood there in the road and refused to fly away.  Turns out that it represented life for me also. It  was a good omen for I came through surgery with flying colors.
     A schoolmate of ours, Ina Weissmann,  has made it her heart's desire to locate all nine grades of the students of the Gertraudenschule at the time we attended it: a truly tremendous job. Ina is a weaver  of people and events in her own right, and through her Eleanor will be able to touch base with her own classmates whom she has lost track of except for her one best friend, Annemarie Tesch-Groh, who lives in Switzerland. Like the Navaho Indians who deliberately insert imperfections into their artistic designs life is a perfect imperfection. It leaves room for surprises when we least expect them.