Twenty-five years ago, I was sitting in front of the TV one evening, mindlessly zapping through channels. The kids were already in bed, my wife was asleep, and I was simply flipping through stations. Then something happened that completely threw me off: I saw my own children appear on television!
You can probably imagine how stunned I was. This was the era of VCRs. Quickly pop in a tape and record it? No chance. Before I could fully grasp what was happening, those few seconds were already over. Back then, we watched TV linearly—no pause button, no rewinding.
After some digging, I discovered that a David Attenborough documentary had aired that night. It was an episode about human behavior, made by the iconic filmmaker. And the footage? It had been shot during a visit to ZOO Planckendael, featuring my daughters and me on screen.
Years later, thanks to the internet, I finally tracked down that very episode. The memory slowly came back, especially when I suddenly recalled the cameraman who had filmed us that day.
What’s stuck with me the most? The incredible coincidence of that night. What are the odds that I, in that exact moment of mindless zapping, would stumble upon that specific documentary featuring my daughters? On that night, on that channel, at that precise second?