Coincidences Following The Death Of A Loved One

Clement Freud

Today's story is about death, coincidences and last words. It is the bare bones of an article by Emma Freud, which was published in the magazine, Eulogy, when it launched.

It's about the death of Clement Freud, the grandson of Sigmund, who was well known in the UK as a member of parliament, a knight, chef, broadcaster, author, soldier and raconteur.

Clement Freud died at the age of 84 while he was in the mid sentence of writing an article for The Racing Post. He had a massive heart attack and the last words he wrote were 'and in God's good time'.

His wife has stated that, in his 50+ years of writing, she had never known her husband make any reference previously to God.

At the time of his death his daughter, Emma Freud, was in Copenhagen and she received two calls from her mother trying to tell her about her father's passing. As her phone was switched off she phoned her mother back and heard the news.

Emma says, "I made a noise - a bit like a lion and a bit like a gasp. I instantly felt sorry that my mum had to listen to it."

Now comes the second strange incident. Emma's 13 year old daughter, who was two flights below her in a restaurant, heard her gasp. In Emma's words:

"My daughter incomprehensibly heard it and instantly ran up to me as fast as she could. No one else heard a thing, but something communicated itself down to the basement and she responded in a heartbeat."

In time the funeral and cremation were arranged and Emma decided to sing a song, to her own piano accompaniment, at the ceremony. She chose the classic I'll Be Seeing You In All The Old Familiar Places.

Following the cremation, when all of the mourners had left, Emma and her partner decided to walk down to their local ice cream parlour. As they opened the door the speakers were playing Billie Holiday singing I'll Be Seeing You In All The Old Familiar Places!

As Emma put it, "Obviously my dad hadn't gone to heaven, he'd gone to Gelato Mio instead. And while he was there he wanted to hear the song sung properly."

It does seem that such coincidences and happenings can be in abundance following the death of loved ones.

Other Random Posts:
A Short Snappy Coincidence
The Meaning Of White Feathers As Messages From The Dead
Tapping Into Magic For Creative Ideas

The Coincidence Of A Steamer Saved From A Titanic Iceberg

I have published several posts about the ship Titanic and coincidences. Here's a further coincidence story that has connections with the Titanic and it's one I haven't mentioned previously.

There was a young seaman called William Reeves. He was on watch in the bow of a steamer heading to Canada from Tyneside in north-west England. The year was 1935. The month was April - the same month of Titanic's sinking. Reeves became obsessed with thinking about Titanic's downfall. He felt some strong negative feelings about his voyage.

The thoughts of danger took shape in the seaman's mind as he remained on watch. He strained his eyes looking for any signs, but could see nothing but the gloom and darkness. He felt though that something was wrong, but couldn't say why. He felt too scared to shout out any alarm for fear of ridicule.

His feelings of doom, however, became stronger when he realized the date was April 14, the same day the Titanic sank. He risked making a fool of himself and shouted out a danger warning, The helmsman immediately rang the signal: engines full astern.

The ship churned to a halt ... just yards from a huge iceberg which towered high out of the water. There were also other icebergs crowded round the steamer. It took nine days before the Newfoundland icebreakers could smash a clear path for the steamer.

By another strange coincidence the steamer was called the Titanian.

Other Titanic Posts:
Titanic Coincidences
Violet Survived The Titanic Sinking And Three Other Ship Disasters
Titanic Pictures, Posts And Stories
The Titanic Boarding Pass Coincidence

The Lands Where Man Has A Dog's Head

So, was mankind once crossed with canines? Okay, probably not many readers will believe this to be the case but ...

The Koniagas, a tribe of North American Natives, trace their pedigree back to a dog. And the legends of a breed of men with dog's head is a recurring one in many different civilisation. For example ...

One of the best accounts is by Sir John Mandeville, who wrote ...

Men go by the sea ocean by many isles, unto an isle that is called Nacumera, that is a good isle and fair. And it is in compass about more than a thousand mile. And all the men and women of that isle have hounds' heads, and they be called Cynoceptales (Greek for 'dog heads'). And they be full reasonable and of good understanding, save that they worship an ox for their God. And also every one of them beareth an ox of gold or of silver in his forehead, in token that they love well their God. And they go all naked save a little clout. They be great folk and well-fighting. And they have a great targe [shield] that covereth all the body, and a spear in their hand to fight with. And if they take any man in battle, anon they eat him.

Marco Polo said that these people lived in the Andaman Islands in The Bay of Bengal.

Also in some depictions of St. Christopher in Eastern art he is shown with a dog's head. There is a reason for this though ...

The legend is that St. Christopher was very handsome and was therefore continually pestered by women - how awful this must have been. So he prayed to be given a dog's head as protection.

Back in ancient Egyptian times there was also the cult of the dog-headed god, Anubis.

Well with all of this, no wonder a dog is Man's Best Friend ...

Other Random Posts:
The Mysterious Crete Goddess Of Myrtos
Eerie Island Of Spinalonga A Sunken City And A Mermaid
The Mysterious Skull With The Golden Wreath Of Protection

A short, snappy coincidence from Karen.

"My biggest coincidence is from about 20 years ago. My name is Karen and I live in Michigan (USA), and I met another Karen who lived about a block away from us.

We got to talking, and over a few weeks time we realized that we had both lived in the same house while growing up in Minnesota (about 600 miles away).

Her family lived there before our family did.

Not sure that it really meant anything, but it was very interesting!"

Other Posts:
Autograph Book Coincidences
Unusual Contact With Her Dead Mother
The Chipped Teapot Coincidence

Autograph Book Coincidences

This is a 'small' personal coincidence I first wrote about in January 2010. Someone described to me that coincidences were a wink from the Universe - so here's a couple of winks I received

I had been clearing out the loft in our house and came across a case full of bits and pieces from when I was a child. Amongst the items were two autograph books. I kept these out as I wanted to look through them to see if any of the more famous names might be of interest.

An autograph I did notice, as I absent mindedly flicked quickly through the pages, was one from somebody called Don Robertson who wrote in my book, "Hi Mike, Don Roberston Yo-Yo Instructor."

I didn't think any more about this until I was watching The One Show on (UK) television the very same night. Who did they bring on as an odd interest item? Yes, an 84 year old Don Roberston!

Seemingly Don is still technically the reigning yo-yo champion because the title has not been contested since he won many years ago - and I've got his autograph! Small world.

There was another aspect of this coincidence as well. On the front of another of my autograph books (pic right) was the word Corbiere. I had never realised this previously. But, by coincidence, I used to live in Corbiere Avenue, years back, when I bought my very first house.

I am starting to feel that these sort of coincidences are indeed winks from the Universe!' It's as if the years are all linked and threaded together. Perhaps, in some respects, time in meaningless.

Other Random Posts:
The Chipped Teapot Coincidence
The Policeman And The Wrong Telephone Number Coincidence
Married Couple In The Same Photo As Children oincidence

Tapping Into Magic For Creative Ideas

The author Elizabeth Gilbert - she wrote Eat, Pray, Love which was also a movie, starring Julie Roberts - has written a new book called Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. This is about how we can discover our creativity. She has, for example, a novel way of thinking about ideas, and how they can come about. See what you think of the following, in her own words. Part of it is following the coincidences that cross our paths.

HOW TO TAP INTO BIG MAGIC

"I've spent my entire life in devotion to creativity, and along the way I've developed a set of beliefs about how it works - and how to work with it - that is entirely and unapologetically based upon magical thinking. And when I refer to magic, I mean it literally - in the Hogwarts sense. I believe that creativity is a force of enchantment.

I believe that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and plants and bacteria and viruses, but also by ideas. Ideas are a disembodied, energetic life-form, separate from us, but capable of interacting with us. Ideas have no material body, but they do have consciousness, and they are driven by a single impulse: to be made manifest. And the only way any idea can be made manifest in our world is through collaboration with a human partner.

Therefore, ideas spend an eternity swirling around us, searching for available and willing partners. (I'm talking about all ideas here - artistic, scientific, industrial, commercial, ethical, political.) When an idea thinks it has found somebody - say, you - who might be able to bring it into the world, it will pay you a visit.

Mostly, you will not notice, because you're so consumed by your own distractions and insecurities that you aren't receptive to inspiration. You might miss the signal because you're watching TV, or pondering your failures and mistakes, or just really busy. The idea will try to wave you down (perhaps for a few moments, a few months or even a few years), and when it finally realises that you're oblivious to is message, it will move on to someone else.

But sometimes - rarely, but magnificently - there comes a day when you're open and relaxed to actually receive something.

Your defences slacken, and magic can slip through. The idea sensing your openness, will; start to work on you. It will send the universal signals of inspiration (the chills up the arms, the hair standing up on the back of the neck, the nervous stomach, the buzzy thoughts, that feeling of falling into love or obsession).

The idea will organise coincidences and portents to tumble across your path, to keep interest keen. Everything you see and touch and do will remind you of the idea. It will wake you in the middle of the night and distract you from your everyday routine. It will not leave you alone until it has your fullest attention.

And then, in a quiet moment, it will ask, 'Do you want to work with me?'"

On Amazon UK: Big Magic:  Creative Living Beyond Fear
On Amazon USA: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

The Dream Of An Air Crash Came True

Precognition within dreams, isn't always good news - especially if any message is ignored. Here is such a story to which there are three parts.

Firstly there is the dream which David Redman-Thomas had back in the late 1960's. He awoke one day screaming with fear. When his wife, Merle, asked him what was wrong he laughed it off and said that he had imagined himself plunging from the sky.

Merle also had a dream, the second part of this story.

She described the dream about her trainee amateur pilot husband. "In the dream I watched my husband take off and fly around the airfield. Suddenly the plane plummeted to the ground. I recognised the control tower and other buildings very clearly. It was Wycombe Air Park. It was all so realistic that I woke up in tears. My husband told me not to be so silly and to go back to sleep."

The following Easter Monday David drove his wife and children to Wycombe Air Park where he was due to have his very first solo flight that morning. Everything was arranged and David kissed his wife and headed towards his aircraft.

He was stopped on the way by his friend, another David - David Poore - who invited him for a ride first in his aircraft.

Merle continues with the story. "That was when my dream started to come true. I saw them take off and start circling the airfield. Then the engine began to miss badly. As I watched it fell from the sky and out of sight behind some trees. It all happened within five minutes of take off."

The two Davids died in the accident.

The third part of this story happens the day after the crash. It was broad daylight and Merle saw an image of her husband's face.

Merle explains, "At two o'clock the next day, following the accident, I was at home talking to my mother when suddenly I saw David staring at me from the opposite wall. His face was completely unmarked, but I noticed his hair was standing up at the front as if somebody had cut a lock from it."

"I hadn't wanted to see his body, but the next day my father-in-law handed me a lock of hair as a keepsake. He told me David's face was unmarked and that he had cut the hair from exactly the same spot as in my vision."

Think of it as you will.

Other Random Posts:
He Foresaw His Brother's Plane Crash In A Dream
The Unusual Contact With Her Dead Mother
The Bizarre 1914 Photo Coincidence