I'm not sure where to park this one because I don't even know how to describe the experience other than very...weird.
I woke up tonight/this morning (I don't sleep well sometimes these days) and I was thinking about a childhood very good friend of mine, not just casually either. It was a very focused and detailed thought. His name was John, and we were best friends from age 7 or so until about 12. My family moved away about that time and eventually John and I lost contact.
The thought I woke up with this morning is as follows....
About 3 years ago I learned that John had moved (coincidentally) to Colorado. Of all the places I've lived around the globe I never expected John would wind up in the same state as me. I had no choice but to reach out to him if nothing else to say hello. I found an email address for him and, not knowing if it would work or not, I wrote out a quick email to say "Hi". About 3 weeks later, to my surprise, I received a reply, but the reply wasn't from John, it was from his wife.
His wife profusely thanked me for reaching out to him, but unfortunately John had passed away several months before. His wife was over the top with thanks for trying to contact him (which I found odd) and stated what a terrible shame it was that we never got to meet up. She went on to say that John had talked about me for their entire married life and had searched for me many times with no success.
His wife and I exchanged a couple of emails, first mine offering my sincerest condolences and asking about John. I also provided a little background on myself and what I'd been doing all these years. She replied with a lengthy email about John, his personality, his hobbies and what a great guy he was. I had not really intended anything more than my second condolence email, figuring that would be the end of it. However, upon reading her lengthy reply now I had some questions. She had also posed some questions to me which I answered in my follow up. She sounded like a very nice and loving wife.
John had always been a big Star Trek nut, so big that I figured he was the type who wound up going to conventions as an adult, so I inquired about this. Her response was that my question confirmed my identity as the person John always talked about, and she went on to say that while he was a lifelong fan of Star Trek he never went overboard with it. In his later years his interest in Star Trek waned and he took up model trains as a hobby (apparently in a big way). There were a couple other questions, but you get the idea. I wasn't trying to start any sort of a long term dialog with this woman, just a few simple questions. She replied (once I think), I thanked her and that was the end of it.
Fast forward to my waking up this morning. I remembered all of that as I laid there awake. Except for one problem...I can find no record of those conversations ever having taken place. None. I keep everything, and I mean every-thing, for decades, and I could find absolutely no record of these events ever taking place. Then I started wondering if it had all been just a dream of some kind. Maybe none of it was real.
I got up and decided to do some digging. Turns out John really did move to Colorado. And, it also turns out John really did die in 2019. And, if this wasn't enough, many of the sympathy messages from friends and family in his obituary repeatedly complimented him on his fantastic model train work. There's no way I could have known any of those details without his wife telling me. I knew I had never previously seen an obituary for John, so I never would have read the sympathy messages.
The overall thought/memory I woke up with was far more detailed than what I've written here, but again you get the idea.
Was it real? Or was it 'Memorex' (i.e. just some crazy coincidence?). Or...was it something completely different, like some metaphysical communication?
What do you think?
I woke up tonight/this morning (I don't sleep well sometimes these days) and I was thinking about a childhood very good friend of mine, not just casually either. It was a very focused and detailed thought. His name was John, and we were best friends from age 7 or so until about 12. My family moved away about that time and eventually John and I lost contact.
The thought I woke up with this morning is as follows....
About 3 years ago I learned that John had moved (coincidentally) to Colorado. Of all the places I've lived around the globe I never expected John would wind up in the same state as me. I had no choice but to reach out to him if nothing else to say hello. I found an email address for him and, not knowing if it would work or not, I wrote out a quick email to say "Hi". About 3 weeks later, to my surprise, I received a reply, but the reply wasn't from John, it was from his wife.
His wife profusely thanked me for reaching out to him, but unfortunately John had passed away several months before. His wife was over the top with thanks for trying to contact him (which I found odd) and stated what a terrible shame it was that we never got to meet up. She went on to say that John had talked about me for their entire married life and had searched for me many times with no success.
His wife and I exchanged a couple of emails, first mine offering my sincerest condolences and asking about John. I also provided a little background on myself and what I'd been doing all these years. She replied with a lengthy email about John, his personality, his hobbies and what a great guy he was. I had not really intended anything more than my second condolence email, figuring that would be the end of it. However, upon reading her lengthy reply now I had some questions. She had also posed some questions to me which I answered in my follow up. She sounded like a very nice and loving wife.
John had always been a big Star Trek nut, so big that I figured he was the type who wound up going to conventions as an adult, so I inquired about this. Her response was that my question confirmed my identity as the person John always talked about, and she went on to say that while he was a lifelong fan of Star Trek he never went overboard with it. In his later years his interest in Star Trek waned and he took up model trains as a hobby (apparently in a big way). There were a couple other questions, but you get the idea. I wasn't trying to start any sort of a long term dialog with this woman, just a few simple questions. She replied (once I think), I thanked her and that was the end of it.
Fast forward to my waking up this morning. I remembered all of that as I laid there awake. Except for one problem...I can find no record of those conversations ever having taken place. None. I keep everything, and I mean every-thing, for decades, and I could find absolutely no record of these events ever taking place. Then I started wondering if it had all been just a dream of some kind. Maybe none of it was real.
I got up and decided to do some digging. Turns out John really did move to Colorado. And, it also turns out John really did die in 2019. And, if this wasn't enough, many of the sympathy messages from friends and family in his obituary repeatedly complimented him on his fantastic model train work. There's no way I could have known any of those details without his wife telling me. I knew I had never previously seen an obituary for John, so I never would have read the sympathy messages.
The overall thought/memory I woke up with was far more detailed than what I've written here, but again you get the idea.
Was it real? Or was it 'Memorex' (i.e. just some crazy coincidence?). Or...was it something completely different, like some metaphysical communication?
What do you think?
