Call It Serendipity, the Stars Aligning, or God Answering Your Prayers

Written by Bethanie Milford, LCSW

Edited by Christina Thompson

How the home, career, resources, and residential placement we had worked toward finally came together

Throughout my family’s journey, my focus was always on getting us to a better place. I envisioned us living in a specific type of home on Long Island. I wanted to build a successful private practice. I hoped our daughter would find a residential educational setting close enough for us to remain actively present in her life. I wanted my partner to discover the career path that was right for him. More than anything, I wanted us to have access to whatever resources we needed to make these things possible, even when we did not yet know what those resources would be.

To fully understand how far we have come, I would encourage readers to begin with some of my earlier blogs. They provide important context for what it took to arrive at this point.

Learning How to Live in the Quiet

Five years ago, our daughter was attending her first residential educational setting. My partner and I were learning how to live without her at home and how to be a couple again.

It was an unusually quiet period in our lives, and we did not quite know what to do with that quiet. For so long, our lives had revolved around caregiving, crisis management, advocacy, and trying to anticipate what might happen next. When that daily intensity suddenly changed, we had to rediscover who we were outside of survival mode.

Still, life continued. I focused on building my private practice, while her father continued working at his usual job. Together, we decided that we would work as much as possible and spend one year saving toward purchasing our first home.

During that year, we contacted a realtor simply to ask some basic questions about homeownership and the buying process. I told her that we would contact her again when we were ready.

One year later, we were.

The House That Somehow Chose Us

I contacted the same realtor, and she made what could have been an overwhelming process almost effortless.

On our first day of looking at houses, the second home we entered felt different. By the time we walked out, my partner and I both knew it was the one.

Many other people were viewing the house, yet we felt strangely calm. We stood outside with our realtor and decided to submit an offer. Later that day, we learned that 16 people had placed bids.

Our offer included the lowest percentage we could put down, but it was everything we could give. On paper, we may not have appeared to be the strongest buyers.

Still, we got the house.

We later learned that the woman who owned the home had been watching the viewings from a neighbor’s house. She told her realtor that she was curious about us. She and her husband wanted the house to go to people who would take care of it. She had a feeling about the couple she had seen standing outside, talking with their realtor for so long and asking questions.

Eventually, she learned that we were the people behind the offer they had accepted—the people she had been watching from across the street.

Call it intuition. Call it serendipity. Call it the stars aligning. Call it God answering a prayer.

Somehow, this house became ours.

A School We Had Never Been Able to Find

During the same months that we were exploring the possibility of buying our first home, we received a call from our daughter’s NYC Department of Education case manager. A residential school was interested in interviewing her.

The strange part was that I had never heard of this school.

When her existing residential placement had previously come close to closing, I had scoured the residential school listings on the NYC DOE website and searched across the internet. I thought I had found every possible option. Yet this school, the one now asking to meet our daughter, never appeared in any of my searches.

We scheduled the interview for a time when we would already be bringing our daughter into New York for a medical appointment. It was important to us that the school meet her in person. We wanted its staff to understand her actual level of functioning, including the dysregulation that could lead to aggression. We did not want anyone to accept her based on an incomplete picture of who she was or what she needed.

Throughout the interview, something unfamiliar happened: We kept hearing yes.

Yes, they could support her.

Yes, they understood her needs.

Yes, they were willing to work with her.

After so many barriers, denials, and systems telling us what they could not do, hearing one yes after another felt surreal.

Closer Than We Had Dared to Imagine

The school was beautiful and the staff was so welcoming. Our daughter would have her own bedroom, which is not always available in residential settings. The children regularly participated in community activities through both the residential and school programs, something she had not experienced in her existing placement.

We later learned that the school had available openings and had repeatedly conducted outreach to the NYC DOE. Yet, for reasons we still do not fully understand, the school did not receive many referrals. After our daughter was accepted, referrals from the NYC DOE suddenly began arriving.

Once again, the timing felt impossible to explain.

One month after we moved into our home, we relocated our daughter from New Hampshire to her new residential educational setting on Long Island.

Previously, visiting her required driving anywhere from four and a half to seven hours, depending on traffic. We lived on Staten Island, she lived in New Hampshire, and every visit meant navigating an exhausting journey through New York City traffic.

Now, she is only 30 minutes from our new home.

When the Pieces Finally Came Together

I had held a very specific vision for our family: a home on Long Island, a growing private practice, meaningful work for my partner, the resources necessary to keep moving forward, and a residential placement where our daughter could receive support while remaining close to us.

None of it happened easily. Before the pieces came together, there was a lot of uncertainty, exhaustion, advocacy, fear, saving, searching, and continuing forward without knowing whether our efforts would ever lead us where we hoped to go.

Then, within a remarkably short period, the house became ours and our daughter was offered a placement only 30 minutes away.

Perhaps it was serendipity. Perhaps the stars finally aligned. Perhaps it was divine timing or God answering prayers we had carried for years.

Whatever someone chooses to call it, I know this: Sometimes we work toward something for so long that we do not immediately recognize the moment when life begins answering us.