As I laid down an overflowing plate of Chinese food onto the table of my favorite college restaurant, I realized this would likely be my final meal in Columbia, Missouri. Four years of late night studying, cramming to finish papers, and midnight runs to Jefferson City for donuts were coming to a close.

The friends and family sitting around the table that May evening had all played pivotal roles in my college graduation. As only the second person on both sides of my family to graduate from a four-year college, it was never a foregone conclusion I’d finish. But here I was, thanks to those at this table.

Yet I wasn’t thinking about graduation while sitting at that table. Instead, my mind drifted back to a conversation I had at a friend’s house four years earlier.

“What do you want more than anything else?” my friend’s mom asked me in between bites of a baked potato. Tough question, I thought. Not quite 18 years old at the time, I could have gone anywhere with the question. I dreamed of becoming a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist. Having grown up in a family hit hard by divorce, I longed for a family of my own. I wanted to see the great sites of the globe.

But that’s not the direction I went that day.

“I’d like to, just once, share a meal with both of my parents,” I told her.

My parents divorced when I was three years old. Until my senior year of high school, I had never seen a photo of them together smiling. For as long as I could remember, I only heard the worst from each of them about the other.

I figured my dream was a lost cause.

Four years later I could barely eat as I sat behind the mound of food on my plate. Both my parents were around that table. No fighting. No angry words. No one had suggested staying home if the other attended.

I honestly can’t remember much of what was said that night. I’m sure we talked about graduation, reflected upon the past, and discussed my future plans. Almost a quarter of a century of life now stands in the way of those memories.

Yet, as that meal wrapped up, I remember taking my fortune cookie out of the wrapper and cracking it open. I don’t put much faith in luck. Nor do I believe that whoever stuffed that little piece of paper in my fortune cookie knew anything about my past or my present.

But I was surprised when I read the words.

“Your greatest wish will come true.”

It already had.