Dean Dalman

I thought they were just hockey cards.

This spring, I had just completed an edit on my new work with my friend, and working for free editor Izzy, when I noticed I had misspelled character names and used the wrong name in another instance. That prompted me to go through the book again and make a list of characters, with their proper spelling, to ensure accuracy on the next edit. When I finished the list, I felt compelled to use a Google search to find out if the names held any meaning.

The main character in Dying is Easy is a fellow named Jackson Davis. I learned after a brief search that Jackson meant “God is Gracious” and and Davis meant “Beloved”. Jackson’s love interest in the story is named Maria, and much to my surprise it too meant “Beloved”.

One by one I punched the other character names into the Google search engine and one after another they come back with references to God, with the most common meaning being “God is gracious and Beloved”.

Holy crap, that’s weird.

I reached out to my friend Izzy to see if she knew we were using names that had these specific meanings. She had no idea and her energy and enthusiasm could be felt quivering through the phone. Something was going on.

It was all too much. I told Izzy I needed a minute to process and hung up to go to my meditation spot in the sunroom, to ground myself and seek guidance on what was happening. Before I even started my meditation, I noticed I had left a box of old hockey cards on the footstool. I had been looking at them the day before and forgot to put them away. The box was open, and fate seemed to tempt me to pull a card that was slightly higher than the rest. It was card number 134 from 1983 OPC. It was a checklist, and upon closer inspection, I saw it had all the main male character names in some variation from my book on the card.

I shuddered, wondering if this was happening. Not convinced, I asked the universe to let me pull a second card to help confirm that the first was no accident. I reached in and pulled out a 1971 O Pee Chee comic insert card, number 20 of Orland Kurtenbach. I almost put it back and chose another, as this one looked more like a comic than a card, but I decided to leaf through it before selecting a replacement. Orland was born on the prairies, had the same back surgery I had, and started his hockey career where I hoped to start mine. His career took him to the same cities as the character in the book, but it was missing a key city — Seattle. With a little investigation, I learned that Orland took a coaching job in Seattle once his playing days were over. Jackson Davis also ended up in Seattle after his playing career in baseball was over. When I flipped over to the back of the comic, six more names of the secondary characters appeared there.

“Holy shit,” I swore aloud.

Ok that’s it! I challenged the universe and spoke aloud.

If this book is meant to be shared and conveys a message, have me draw a card that clearly shows it is not my work, but something gifted from the ether. I closed my eyes, reached into the box, and pulled out card number 375 from 1980 OPC. It was Andre Savard, but neither Andre nor Savard have any relevance to the story. I flipped it over, hoping to find a name there. There is a reference to a teammate Jim on the card, but Jim is a fairly common name, and it didn’t feel like a message like the others, more just chance. I scanned his stats to see if any cities were shared when something stood out like it was under a spotlight on a darkened stage. Andre Savard’s birthday is September 2nd, and three characters die on that date in my book, the only prominent date mentioned.

Ok that’s enough for me to be a believer, but there's more in case some of you think im BSing.

The following week I floated around on a cloud, exchanging excited calls and texts with Izzy, who was getting the math. It was about this time I asked AI to calculate the odds of this happening. It came back as rounding down to zero, less than one in billions. Like winning the lottery a hundred times.

Hmmm that’s weird. That’s sorta like the name of my memoir. How to Win the Lottery in Life. Might have to add one hundred times to the title.

After the week of floating, I found myself looking at the first card I pulled, the 1980 checklist. Upon further review I saw the names Wayne Gretzky, Jarri Kurri and Mike Krushelnyski on that card. I chuckled, recalling my encounter with the three of them when I was mistaken for Mike when I happened to be exiting the Winnipeg Arena after the Oilers morning skate. I wrote about it in my memoir how I spent about ten minutes signing hockey cards outside the Winnipeg Arena. There are about ten kids out there with Dean Dalman number 13 on their Mike Krushelnyski cards. I have the whole set of the 1983 OPC in an album in the living room and I grabbed the binder to see how much I looked like Mike Krushelnyski and to see if any other cards jumped out in the set. Maybe another message from the universe, even.

I flipped slowly through the binder, one page at a time. I found the Mike Krushelnyski card. I guess there was some resemblance, but there were no nudges from the universe. No nudges that is till the last page. On the last page on the top right corner is Doug Smail. A Winnipeg Jet I had the pleasure of seeing play a lot in the early nineties. The guy was wicked fast and should have scored 50 goals a year with that speed, but the puck just never bounced right for that dude. I flipped the card to check how many goals he scored that season but couldn’t see his stats from the glare of his birthday. You guessed it, September 2nd.

Apophenia is described as the tendency to see meaningful patterns or connections in random things. Maybe this is all that is, but I went through the whole set of cards again to see if there were any other September 2nd birthdays. I found another. Apophenia reared its head again. The fellow's last name was Jackson, the same as the main character’s first name in the book, and it is card number 33. The same number Jackson Davis wore when he played baseball.

Ok, Ok I get it, so I sent out copies of the book to as many publishers and literary agents as I could find. The rejection letters have been abundant the last few months, and difficult to digest at first. The rejection would have been too much, enough for me to give up had the universe not been sending abundant gifts and synchronicities in the forms of people sharing their personal stories with hardships similar to the characters in the book. I have heard many stories of triumph over disease, mental health and addiction and heart wrenching stories of real loss. Stories of real people facing real adversity with grace the last few months. That gave me an idea!

I went back through the book again and realized that there are mentions of specific ailments and diseases throughout. My vision moving forward is to post a link to the various charities each month in hopes that people might donate to aid people with the same afflictions as the characters in the book. Organizations that raise money for cancer, MS, Heart and Stroke, drug addiction, diabetes, mental health. A different cause for each month.

There are no answers in this book. Anyone buying it thinking it will take away the pain of living or give you the key to life, save your money, you likely won't find it in there. But what I think you will find in there, if your heart is even cracked open a little, is a sample of grace and a sliver of hope.

I am hoping to enter a publishing contest on Amazon in August, hoping that might draw some attention and improve my algorithm and maybe with any luck, we can raise some money for worthy charities with this book.

Feel free to share this post with friends and family, and maybe we can collectively do some good.

The world has never needed grace and hope more.

Stay tuned for the release of my new book "Dying is Easy" coming out later this month.

Bless

Dean