Coincidences

[cos]

On the drive to Connecticut this weekend I listened to an episode of This American Life about coincidences. Several stories of coincidences were told, some rally excellent, others nothing special. One idea they explored was that when a coincidence happens to you, you view it more significantly or remember it more than when you hear about a similar coincidence happening to someone else.

It got me thinking of a coincidence that happened to my parents last year.

When I was very little we lived in Jinja, Uganda, where my parents had been living for several years before I was born. My parents divorced here in the US, and my father remarried here.

My stepmother had never been to Africa. Last year, my dad planned a long vacation for the two of them to Uganda and Tanzania, to show her all the places and things from his past. They were going to see wildlife, and nature, and the cities, and visit Jinja and see if our former house was still there.

In the spring my stepmother's mother was diagnosed with cancer, and it was clearly going to be fatal within a year, so my parents cancelled the trip. While she was still here, they weren't going anywhere. As it turned out, the cancer progressed very quickly, and she died three months later, in the summer, during the time that they would've been in Africa.

Her final few days were right on the dates when, if they'd gone to Africa, my parents would've been in Jinja. Spending those days at the hospital with her, they met her nighttime caretaker, who'd become good friends with my stepgrandmother in a short time. A young woman from Jinja, Uganda. She and my dad traded stories, and when he described where we'd lived, she knew the street and recognized the description and told him the house was still there.

[ My parents did go to Africa this winter and did most of what they'd planned for the summer trip. ]

...

Tell a story of a coincidence you know of? One that happened to someone else, who told you about it, and you remembered it.

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

I was walking down Highland Ave here in Somerville, preparing to cut across to go to the grocery store at Porter, when I spotted several guys about my age or younger (probably mid-20s) moving musical instruments from the house to their car. I saw guitar case, fiddle case, banjo case, and a mandolin case... so naturally I assumed bluegrass. I grew up in a strong bluegrass community back in Alaska, so I started chatting with them. Really got to talking to the banjo player about a dear family friend of mine who had played the banjo and who had passed away the year before. Then we got to talking about the differences between the folk music scene here vs back home. He asks where "back home" and I say, "Oh! Anchorage, Alaska." He and his friends laugh hard, and he points to himself and says, "Fairbanks!" He pauses, and then asks if the family friend I'd been talking about was a guy named Ken Terry. I say yes. He tells me that Ken had taught him how to play the banjo. So he'd flown in from MA to attend Ken's memorial service. I tell him I had also been at that service, and my dad played at it. Ken having been a dear friend, and had played on all four of my dad's albums. He asks who my dad is. "Mike Campbell," I tell him. "NO WAY! Your dad gave me my first guitar lesson!"

Crazy small world.

Oh - Item the 2nd...

During my India trip. I was at a cafe in Udaipur for Diwali, and met an American couple from Colorado. The woman and I take one look at each other and we're both, "I know you!" We couldn't for the life of us figure out how, though. I finally got out of her that she's originally from Rhode Island. And is a burner. And yeah, we had met at several local burner parties here in Boston.

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

Now I'm amused: my father is also Mike Campbell.