"My boat is so small"

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

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.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

After 13 years of sharing my life with him, including a long term illness, my husband passed away. His passing had caused a lot of turmoil and I found myself completely left alone, grieving. After the funeral, there was literally nobody in my direct environment (neighbours, family, old study friends) who showed unselfish compassion. Everybody seemed to have a hidden agenda, whishing me as a baby sitter (study friend), a health carer (family) investment banker (family/neighbours) or worse, potential wife. I struggled everyday to set boundaries, reinvent my life and find meaning. The one thing that kept me going was a little prayer my late husband used to favor: "Mon Dieu, aidez-moi, mon avir est si petit et votre mer si grande." One day, only 1,5 month later, I hesitantly decided to join this annual rowing trip, organized by the rowing club which I joined for 2 years. The year before, I got so frozen during this trip, it had caught me the flew. However, this year, the weather was sunny and shiny. So I went. I got selected in a boat with 2 other rowers, which I didn't know, but who seemed to know eachother for a long time – from childhood. They were chatting all along and I felt a liitle sorry I joined this trip with 2 people who didn’t pay any attention to their third rower. But then, their conversation got more detailed and a name caught my attention. It was the name of a street my late husband shared many stories about, since he had lived there over 30 years ago. I couldn’t resist saying: “I know someone who lived there.” Both didn’t seem very interested, probably because this particular street has many flats and so many people used to live there, why bother.. However, as soon as I mentioned his name, I had their attention. It turned out they both had known him very well and had been very good friends but lost sight of eachother after his divorce, when he moved to a nearby village where I met him, 30 years later. This guy used to go on sailing trips with my husband, as a kid. In the year I was born they shared New Years Eve together and fired a sailboat flare (after calculating the most effective degree with cloudy skies) from my husbands family balcony and lit the sky on fire for minutes. Eventually, this guy and I matched and he turned out to become my second husband.
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Date submitted:Sun, 16 Jun 2019 16:16:07 +0000Coincidence ID:10298