Life, both the present and past. is full of strange coincidences. Every now and then, a chance meeting or opportunity falls into one's existence so perfectly you wonder if perhaps there's a glitch in the matrix, or just a sign of something bigger.
Rather than ignore these freaky experiences, these Reddit users chose to share them online. These bizarre true stories about families and relationships are almost too weird to believe, but as they say, life is stranger than fiction.
Found A Postcard From His Girlfriend
From an Anonymous Reddit user:
"I worked at a library for a very long time, and in an effort to not lose my soul, I collected stuff I found in books. My favorite discovery was a hilarious postcard between two friends. I immediately thought, 'I'd like to met these people.' I kept it next to my computer for a few years.
After a few years passes, I'm going through my papers and find a postcard from my girlfriend that I don't recognize. It takes me a few minutes to understand that I'm reading the postcard I'd put aside years earlier, between someone who was now my girlfriend and another person I'd come to know as a friend. It was probably the weirdest event in a series of events that defied probability regarding a ton of surreal linked events in our lives."
Both Rental Agent And Birth Mother
From user Salinger:
"I'm adopted.
I'm about 18 and moving to the big city to start uni, looked at heaps of apartments and finally found somewhere nice. The real estate agent shows me around the apartment and I decide to take it. A couple of days later I'm in the realtor's office to sign the lease, chatting away with the ladies. Just the usual 'Where are you moving from?' chatter as I filled out all the paperwork, and the nice agent who showed my the apartment gave me the keys.
Cut to a few weeks later and the phone at my new apartment rings. It's my realtor calling to tell me that she's my birth mother.
She swears to this day that she recognized my familiar family facial features on the day she showed me the apartment (and it's true, I do look a lot like my cousins and her daughters), and the day I signed the lease she got all my details, birth date, etc. It took her a few weeks to contact me because she wanted to confirm with the Government Adoption agency and to let her family know what was happening.
Bit of a spin out."
Indian Medicine Bags And Paper Dolls
From user Sarcasm_and_Stuff:
"After my great-aunt Lynn passed away, my other great-aunt Cynthia was walking home in the rain. Obviously she still felt pretty sad. She said, 'Lynn, show me some proof that you're still here.'
My aunt Lynn collected these rare things called Indian medicine bags. Somehow, Cynthia found one on the ground in the rain. Inside there were six paper dolls- four girls and two guys. One of the girls was wearing pants.
The coincidence? In her family, there are four sisters and two brothers. Aunt Lynn always wore pants."
It Was Too Busy Up There
From user Fleetyy:
"Here's one that mum told me. A while back, mum and her family were gathered around her uncle in his home, who had been terminally ill with cancer, and wanted to die in his home. Anyway, being Catholic, he wanted to receive his last rites. His breathing pattern was extremely odd until the priest arrived, and gave him his rites. He died about 15 seconds after the priest had finished. But here's the weird part.
After roughly 30 seconds of being out of it, he 'came back.' He turned to his wife and muttered very softly 'I can't go yet, it's too busy.' He then slipped into a state of unconsciousness, and died probably 2 hours later. The next day we turned on the news, and last night at seriously 15 minutes after his first 'death' was the detonation of the historic Bali bombings that killed many people.
I've never really been sure on religion/afterlife, but this experience of mum's has always made me think."
An Oncology Love Connection
From uer that_jerry:
"Back about 10 years ago, I went on a first date with someone I met online through match.com. I lived in the Philadelphia suburbs, she was in the city. I drove into the city for your typical dinner and a movie, or a movie (Memento) and then dinner in this case. We enjoyed the movie and while we were talking and walking to dinner afterwards, I told her what I did for a living, which was write image processing software at a small company she'd likely never heard of.
She paused and asked, 'you don't by any chance know [name of coworker/friend I've known for many years], do you?' Why yes, yes I do, I say. Turns out she knows him through some online forum having to do with singing, and they'd actually met before at some event. We reflect about the unlikelihood of this.
But that is not the coincidence I am writing about.
We continue to the restaurant, having a great conversation, hitting it off. About halfway through dinner, I feel comfortable enough to tell her about having gone through colon cancer the year before, and the long recovery after having had my colon removed. Not your typical first date conversation perhaps, but she was interested. Anyway, after I mention the surgery, she asks where I had it done. Penn, I say. She pauses. 'Who was your oncologist?' she asks. Oh-kayyyy, I think, not the question I would have expected, but I tell her. She pauses even longer. Then she says, in fact demands, 'Who. Was. Your. Oncology. Nurse?' I tell her.
At this point she gets the most amazed expression I'd ever seen and says 'You're...you're...that Jerry!' And starts laughing uncontrollably. Every time the laughter starts to die down, says says 'you're that Jerry!' again, which sets off another fit of laughter. She literally can't get out anything coherent for at least five minutes, she's laughing too hard. The suspense is killing me.
Maybe ten minutes and a dozen "that Jerry's" later, I finally am able to piece together that about a year before, she was sharing an office at Penn with my oncology nurse (she's not in medicine herself, it just had to do with a shortage of space, I think). The nurse used to tell her, 'I have this one patient who would be perfect for you, if only he wasn't recovering from surgery and going through chemo.' She even told her the name of this patient.
Of course 'he' was me, and she and I ended up dating for a year or so and are still good friends to this day."
The Graveyard Coincidence
From user Kaidra_Drakka:
"I was taking some picture at a graveyard for a class and my friends were there modeling for me. I ask one of my friends to try fake cry, while I adjust my camera. When I go to take her picture, I see she is doing a great job crying. I take a couple of pictures before realizing that she is looking at this big family grave... with the exact same names of her relatives. There was her dad's name, mom's, sister's and brother's, exact name with exact last name.
Her family lives in another state and they are alive. So that was spooky, but later on we are all in my car, and we are listening to some music off a USB device. We were listening to a song for like the third time, when the sound goes off and a horrible voice says 'Get back from where you came from,' and the song continues where it left off. We were so creeped out we had to stop and catch our breath."