The moment my grandparents met could be categorized as both of them being “in the right place at the right time,” but we know better.

They were supposed to meet.

Grandpa Hugh was born in Wyoming and spent his childhood working on the family dairy farm and hunting squirrels—he could snipe one at 50 yards.

When World War II broke out, he was technically too young to enlist in the marines. But boys in those days didn’t let a date on a calendar stop them from defending their country. His decision set him on a path that would determine his entire future.

He was sent to the South Pacific, a warm, far cry from Wyoming, but his assignment would eventually put him “in the right place at the right time.” He ran the searchlight for night fighting on Tinian Island.

Grandma Carol was born in Utah and was only a few years old when her father died at work in the train yards in 1929. Carol’s single mother eventually moved them to San Francisco where she miraculously landed a good job.

Around age 7, Carol spent many months at an institution battling TB. Despite setbacks she excelled in school to the point of graduating from high school two years early. She was admitted to Berkeley to study Chemistry. Then the war broke out.

When the war finally ended, Carol attended an event for local singles in her church to mingle. Many men in uniform were in attendance.

Including Hugh.

On his way home to Wyoming, a leftover parachute in hand, he made a mandatory stop at Treasure Island for processing. With a friend, he went to mingle with other singles at a church by Berkeley.

A young woman in a brown fur coat caught his eye.

It was as if the decisions and circumstances of his life, and her life, were coming together at this one, pivotal moment.

“I heard a voice say, there is your wife,” Hugh said in his memoir. He went up and introduced himself.

They were married two months later. Carol, in a dress made from a parachute. Both of them, meant to be.