Out of the blue

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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I had a freind that died unexpectedly . We didn't talk to each other over a 4 year period, due to a falling out. A week before he died, I had out of the blue wondered what impact it would have on me if I got a call saying that my freind passed away. It was just a weird thought, but I was thinking that maybe it was a sign that I should try and revive our friendship. He was a very important person to me , at a very crucial part of my life. He was a freind that I would go to at any time , day or night and knew I could count on him. He was very in tune with me. He and I were not involved romantically, it was just a unique friendship . Something happend a long time ago that made me upset , I felt it was more of a betrayal between us, so I decided to end our friendship . It was hard and It basically changed my life. I blocked emails and just made it impossible to communicate. I would think of him every so often, realizing that I found myself thinking of all the good times. When I had the weird feeling about him dying I emailed him. I told him that I just wanted him to know that he was and always will be an important person in my life. I told him that I know I was important to him too. I said if anything ever happend to one of us , we would be devastated not making peace with each other. He agreed with me and we almost instantly put everything behind us. We talked and chatted thru our facebook almost 8 hours exchanging stories and pics, laughing and catching up with events during our absence .. A few days pass and I decided to go online to see how he was doing. It showed he was online and so I sent him a instant message. No response, nothing odd though because he usually was doing other things. I fell asleep that night but woke up , finding myself scratching my arms and neck , I woke my husband and was starting to get anxiety. My throat swelling up fast I was starting to panic and broke out crying saying something is wrong, asking for my husband to help me . He started getting dressed, it was almost time for him to go to work, so he told me he would take me ASAP. While he was getting dressed I stuck a pen in my mouth , in case my throat swelled shut I would use the pen to offer a space for air to get thru. So I calmly just lay down , and closed my eyes and told myself to relax.. As fast as it happend , it ended. I felt drained but I was showing signs of improvement , swelling in throat ended, and stopped itching. I told him I was ok and he left for work. I was woke up by a call from a freind , telling me that tony had died during the early morning. (Tony is the freind I have been talking about) I jumped up yelling asking what they were talking about. I hung up and ran outside and starting crying and I called my mom , she asked if I wanted her to go get me. I told her just stay on the phone and talk to me. I calmed down , I all of a sudden had a burst of relief... I was thinking how glad I was that we had made peace, still not ok though , but that is the only thing that has given me peace. What I want to know now is, was it a coincidence that I had thought about him dying , and that i needed to make peace. Cause it feels like something brought us together , for the purpose of making peace and saying goodbye.
Total votes: 322
Date submitted:Thu, 20 Mar 2014 03:12:49 +0000Coincidence ID:7512