I was walking across the HEB Parking lot the other day when I came upon an injured bee struggling to elevate itself off of the hot Texas asphalt. It would wildly flap its wings and fly a couple of inches off the ground but then rapidly lose altitude as its wings could no longer sustain their frantic pace and the bee lie motionless on the road. It was a rather pathetic sight and I felt rather sad for the little lost bee.

I don't remember being in a particularly reflective mood, but I did stop and watch the bee for a couple of seconds. I wished I could do something to assist the bee, maybe using one of my grocery bags to scoop it up and take it over to a nearby patch of grass. I thought of stepping on it and putting it out of its misery.

I wondered about the journey this bee took on this day and how it came to be on this path in this HEB parking lot. Was it attacked by a bird? Was it in need of water? Was its life coming to an end because of natural reasons? Maybe it was on an epical journey and was the last of its hive; valiantly trying to make it back to its Queen with food.

I took another mental stap backwards and reflected even further. This may sound a little like new agey bullcrap, but my thoughts quickly went to how in some ways, this bee and I were destined to cross paths. It was as if all of my life and all of its life...Wait, scratch that, it was as if the entire Universe had been on a path for billions of years and all of known time came to a head at this very point.

As if all events in the course of history, no matter how large or small, took me to this very spot. The Big Bang, Millions of years of dust in space, the dinosaurs, me passing a homeless man asking for money in Japan when I was in Marines. They all seemed of equal importance. They all led me here.

I found the whole experience to be strangely beautiful.

An oncoming car snapped me out of my temporary thought bubble and I stepped onto the nearby curb. The car passed over the bee, taking the bee with it. It may seem a little strange, but I was a little sad for the bee. Sad that its last moments on earth were moments of struggle. But then I was also a little happy that our paths crossed on this seemingly random summer day.

I made my way to my car with my groceries. But before I took off, I watched some people going in and out of the grocery store. They didn't seem like "random people" anymore.

-Matt