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zarabia
Tol Eressea
Jul 5 2015, 4:24am
Post #1 of 16
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Stories of coincidence or serendipity?
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I don't know what made me remember this, but about eight years ago I had an experience of "It's a Small World After All."
I met a woman in Poland who was assigned to be my roommate my second year there. She was an avid photographer the whole time I knew her, and when she returned to the US she started making films with her boyfriend. A few months later she sent me an email with a link to one of their films featured on the now defunct Turn Here travel site. As I watched this video about Broadway in Nashville, I was shocked to see my old Kenpo instructor . I had met him in Santa Fe about ten years earlier when I was working at a resort, saving up money to go back to school (and taking Kenpo classes :) ). I knew he wanted to pursue a singing career, but the last I had heard of him, he was still teaching martial arts in New Mexico. But here he was in a video filmed in Tennessee by a woman I live with in Europe. I mean, what are the chances????
Okay, I'm not exactly a raconteur  , but I still thinks it's pretty interesting. So I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar story? Do you have any tales of coincidence or serendipity to share? 
BTW, here's the film my friend made; my Kenpo instructor shows up at about 2:09 -ish.
Broadway: Music & Ink
http://youtu.be/l2xmyI0Y23U
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning 'round
~Do You Realize?, The Flaming Lips
(This post was edited by zarabia on Jul 5 2015, 4:37am)
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Annael
Immortal
Jul 5 2015, 5:07am
Post #2 of 16
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many years ago I was in a tiny town in Norway called Flam, and out walking I met up with a woman who was also American, from San Francisco. She asked if I'd ever visited her city and I said "oh yes, my cousin lives there, on Castro Street." "Really? My closest friend lives on Castro." Yup, my cousin and her closest friend were the same person.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
-- Gaston Bachelard
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jul 5 2015, 7:09am
Post #3 of 16
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Some years ago Mr Kimi was working on
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a project involving geothermal power generation in Indonesia. He spent quite a bit of time up there, and one day while chatting with Indonesian workmates one of them mentioned that the NZ ambassador to Indonesia had the same surname as Mr Kimi, and asked if they were related. The Mr said he thought not, and explained that our surname (Parkinson) is quite common. He was aware of nodding and smiling, implying thoughts along the line of "there are only four million of you, I bet you're all related".
When the project reached handover stage, there was a special function, with the NZ ambassador presiding. He and the Mr got talking, and the apparent coincidence of their shared surnames came up. The ambassador said no, I'm sure we're not related. I come from a small farming valley in the Bay of Plenty...
"Oh," said the Mr. "Me too."
It turned out they were cousins, with a "removed" to take account of being different generations, and came from farms next to each other! The ambassador had left when quite young, before the Mr was born, and they'd never heard of each other till then.
The locals looked at each other, and nodded and smiled as if to say, "Yes, only four million of them..."
Just to add to the fun: a few years ago we met the ambassador's son at a wine tasting (he's a wine maker). He and Mr Kimi have the same given name as well as surname. :)
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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Eruwestial37
Rohan
Jul 5 2015, 8:06am
Post #4 of 16
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Recently, I started taking harp lessons. Harps are REALLY expensive, so I despaired of actually owning one until I learned of a company in Indiana that makes beginner level harps for a reasonable price. They are called Harpsicles and come in a variety of colors.
I have always loved bright red, so I ordered a red one. My mother told me that both she and my father were descended from Brian Boru, a great chieftain of ancient Ireland. Apparently, he had bright red hair and was called "The Lion of Ireland". So I decided to name my little harp after him.
Last night, I was reading some history of the harp and learned that the oldest harp in Ireland is called the Brian Boru harp. It has been established that it wasn't actually his, being 500 years too new to have belonged to him. However, it is the harp pictured on the Irish flag, the Seal of Ireland and the Guinness bottles. Finding a picture of it, I realized it was the same size as my little Brian!
I found this to be pretty cool. Maybe, just maybe, one or two of his genes made their way to me and that is why I chose to play the harp....Or not.
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Alcarcalime
Tol Eressea
Jul 5 2015, 9:31am
Post #5 of 16
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One thing I thought was stranger than truth.
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My mother was from a farm outside a small town in southwestern Minnesota. There was a family on another farm a few miles away. They were the closest friends of my grandparents and the kids all kind of grew up together in the 1920s and 1930s..
Move on: I moved from Los Angeles County to Ohio in 1967. I raised my children in Ohio. I got divorced and remarried to OhioHobbit in 1986 in Ohio. He and his family were from Tennessee. His brother was in the air force, married and widowed, then remarried. He moved to the little town outside Yosemite Park where his wife to be lived.
In 1999, OhioHobbit and I went to California to see his brother and new wife. While we were there, they took us to meet the woman who was his wife's former roommate. She turned out to be the youngest daughter of the friends of my grandparents and a childhood playmate of my mother.
This always struck me as truly weird.
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sherlock
Gondor
Jul 5 2015, 4:33pm
Post #6 of 16
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from Aanapolis Md. My husband & I used to go to Vermont for vacation every year. My husband was driving & we stopped for some supplies. I picked up a free newspaper. As we rode along I read an article in the paper about abortion. It was very well written & interesting so I looked to see who wrote it. It was written by someone I knew who was also from Annapolis but had moved to Vermont. I told my husband about it & then looked out the window & there she was crossing the street.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Jul 7 2015, 12:11am
Post #7 of 16
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When I was a kid, on a family vacation 1500 miles from home
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we stopped at an overlook in California to look at the ocean. My mom noticed a license plate from our county in Colorado in the same lot (in those days you could tell the county from the plates.) She introduced herself to the people, and they turned out to live two doors away from us on the same street; we just hadn't met them yet.
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GNU Terry Pratchett
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
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"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Jul 7 2015, 12:17am
Post #8 of 16
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This one might be more than serendipity:
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Two days after my mom died, we were in the emergency room with my father-in-law. I had been worried about making the decision not to hydrate her (a decision recommended by hospice) and had prayed "Was that OK, Mom? Send me a sign if it's OK."
My husband noticed that the emergency room nurse's nametag said "Nancy", which was my mom's name.
We told her that, and she got a strange look on her face and said "What was her middle name?"
"Anne."
"With an E?"
"Yes."
"That's my middle name too. With an E. And that other nurse over there? Also Nancy Anne. With an E."
At which point I burst into tears, and she put her arms around me and said, "Oh, it's OK, honey, it's OK."
So I got my answer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GNU Terry Pratchett
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
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"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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zarabia
Tol Eressea
Jul 7 2015, 4:26am
Post #9 of 16
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Wow! These are all mind-boggling amazing stories :) //
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You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning 'round
~Do You Realize?, The Flaming Lips
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zarabia
Tol Eressea
Jul 7 2015, 4:38am
Post #10 of 16
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As astounding as some coincidences seem, in most cases they are just random chance, but in cases like this, I believe there is something more at work than happenstance.
Thanks for sharing.
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning 'round
~Do You Realize?, The Flaming Lips
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Jul 7 2015, 7:12pm
Post #11 of 16
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I love this one, but I'll let Aunt Dora's words
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tell the tale: "The best surprise was when I ran into Ethel Duath on the flank of Longs Peak. She was out for a vacation and we had met at a restaurant the night before, but we didn't know we were both hiking on the same trail or that we would run into each other. And there we were at 11,500 feet on Mills Moraine."
We met up again a bit later on another part of the trail! I think some "Power" may have been trying to recruit us for a quest.
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jul 7 2015, 9:48pm
Post #12 of 16
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That reminds me of another one:
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A few years ago the Mr and I did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (quite an awesome experience). There we were taking a break near the summit when a young woman bounded up and said, "Hi!". Took us several moments to recognise Mr Kimi's niece - not only did we not know she was doing the crossing, we didn't know she was in the country! She hasn't lived in New Zealand for years, was paying a brief visit home and had decided almost on the spur of the moment to join friends on the crossing.
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 7 2015, 10:03pm
Post #13 of 16
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I have one to share...it may seem sad, but its bittersweet in its way.
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This story is about a patient and her family, that happened a few years back.
The tale is about a sister and brother who really cared for one another; bro really adored his sis. Brother had issues that eventually dictated he be institutionalized. The sister was brokenhearted, and her family said it was really breaking her heart every single day, but had to be done for the brother's own safety. Right before the trip, as they were accompanying him to the facility, the sister suddenly collapsed. Her condition was fatal, and within a short time with us in the unit she passed away. Her husband said he had no idea - NONE - how he was going to break this to her adoring brother, or what his reaction to the grief would be. They left ...and the next day told us how it went.
They arrived home to find the brother quietly watching TV. Except he wasn't; he was dead. He'd died peacefully in the chair of natural causes. So she never had to drop him off where she was loathe to have to send him, and he never knew he lost his sister. I think of it as a sort of strange, fateful Gift of the Magi tale.
There was great grief of course - two people gone, a mother, wife and uncle lost - but for those two at least, they didn't have the heartaches of losing each other. And of course, its so unbelievable that of you wrote it for TV or film, you'd likely be laughed out of the room.
I've changed some details of the borrowed story, but if (because after all this thread is about serendipity) anyone involved in that particular family happens to read this, we all still think about you and wish you well. 
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The Grey Elf
Grey Havens
Jul 9 2015, 5:46pm
Post #14 of 16
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Wow, that is an awesome and touching story, Brethil.
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Were the brother and sister twins perchance?
Hernevernen!!
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zarabia
Tol Eressea
Jul 10 2015, 12:30am
Post #15 of 16
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That's is incredibly sad, but as you say, in a bittersweet way. Very moving and thought provoking.
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning 'round
~Do You Realize?, The Flaming Lips
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 12 2015, 12:54am
Post #16 of 16
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I think so too, GE. BTW no, they weren't twins. //
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