Sunday, February 24, 2013

Coincidence?

This past Friday, in the middle of the night as I was trying to will myself back to sleep, I suddenly thought of a student I'd had in class way back in 1969-70. His name was Joe.

I hadn't thought of Joe in many years, and there was no reason why I should. I'd known many students between 1968 and 2004, when I retired, so it wasn't a surprise to me that Joe had not entered my thoughts. I'd seen him once since 1970, when Ken and I were eating at a Portland restaurant and Joe was our waiter.

That incident was probably at least 30 years ago.

But I remembered yesterday that Joe had sprung to mind the night before, so I decided to see if I could locate him on White Pages. I found someone with his name living in Cape Elizabeth, aged 60, and decided that was probably the Joe I once knew. Then I forgot about him again.

This morning I sat reading the Sunday paper. Imagine my shock when there, in the obituaries, was listed Joe, the Joe I once knew, age 60, a resident of Cape Elizabeth. Joe had died unexpectedly on Friday, February 22.

Is this merely a coincidence? I don't know. What do you think?

3 comments:

  1. It will be interesting to meet all our friends in the next life...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm back from my blogging break. Check my post for today, you'll find it interesting.

    I wish I could answer your question. I always wonder about those kind of things. It's a little spooky.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Actually... I'm a believer in the sometimes unbelievable. I've heard too many stories of strange things that couldn't be explained.

    ReplyDelete