19. This story is legit amazing.
“Three years ago I was interning at an company that specialized in Green Energy and their mission was to provide electricity to remote villages in Africa. I get assigned to work with a team of engineers, on my way to meet up with them after arriving in Africa I am asked to stop at said address and pick up an utility trailer that is waiting at a local store. I cannot reveal the name or location but its an old store, fairly large with a second floor that was residential, where the man and his family lived. The shop had everything from product, food and medical supplies to a MASSIVE junkyard in the back full of automobiles and planes.
When I arrive at the store he is working on a outboard motor for a customer, he was very friendly and shook my hand as asked how he could help me. I said I am with X company and we have a utility trailer that I am supposed to pick up and take with me to X village. He asks for identification and I hand him my company ID and Tennessee driver’s license, which is in the little holder below the company ID. When he looks at my name his face went from happy to confused. He said ‘I have a question, do you have a father, or sibling that you are named after, that also lives or did live in Tennessee.’
Okay at this point every thought I had came to halt and I was dumbfounded, I am named after my dad and he lived in Tennessee all his life and there aren’t too many people with our name either. After a long pause, I said ‘yes, I am named after my dad, how in the hell do you know that?’
He then said he met a man in the late ’70s that stopped at his store, his name was Jeffrey X____ also and that I resembled him. I said well it couldn’t be the same person, as far as I know my father had never been to Africa, he said no, it was, it was your father, he was in the military and came here to get something from his store.
He then goes on to tell me that my dad offered to help the man work on his car, after they fixed it the man tried to give my dad some money but he insisted that the man keep it. The man then asks my dad to join him and his family for dinner, it was they least he could do, they eat and during the conversation the man’s son overheard my dad talking about a guitar that he had with him. The little boy wanted to see the guitar and for my dad to play it so my dad brings it inside and start to play, the boy was very fascinated with it and told his father he wanted to learn to play someday. Well after dinner my dad has to leave, when he is about to walk out he handed the boy the guitar and told him that he could have it if he promised to practice every day and one day he would try to return to hear him play it.
I am overwhelmed at the emotions I am feeling, the man invites me to dinner as he did my father, I accept and go upstairs where the man hands me a guitar case and said this is the guitar. He said that guitar changed the course of his son’s life, I said where is your son now? He said that he moved out and went to college for music and now lives in another town and teaches guitar for a living, along with some other instruments. We start to eat and he asked my about my father, how he was these days, I then had to tell him that he passed away when I was a still a child. We both started crying and he picked the guitar up and said this is why you came here today, nothing else explains such a phenomenon, your father’s spirit lives within this guitar, it was meant for you to show up here. We ate and when I finished the man asks if I knew how to play. I said I know only one song in its entirety, he requested I play it before I leave. I start to play and his wife and him started crying, they said that it was the last song my dad played before giving the guitar to the man’s son and leaving…”
20. Doppelgängers 2
“In high school there was a kid who had the same middle and last name as me, the same birthday, and our parents had the same names. Not even kidding. It blew my mind.”
21. LeMutt
“Six years ago, because of my drinking, I’d been homeless for about 8 months. I’d been at a shelter for a few weeks and one day, as I walked from the library back to the shelter for dinner, I decided I couldn’t take anymore. I was ready to kill myself. That prior August my mother had passed away, so on the street that evening I said to her, ‘I can’t take it anymore, mom. Help me.’ Back at the shelter, after dinner, us bums waited for showers and bedtime. That evening the shelter had more residents than usual and many of them needed clean socks or underwear, etc.
On this night, it wasn’t scheduled, but the shelter opened the basement where they kept donated clothes. I didn’t need anything, but I was bored, so I went downstairs. I browsed the racks and didn’t find anything to my liking so I headed for the stairs. That’s where I found ‘LeMutt’. ‘LeMutt’ is a toy, a little stuffed dog, and I’d had one when I was a kid. In fact, I clearly remembered my mother and I in the store, 20+ years ago, buying him. I was in 3rd grade then. I asked a volunteer if he knew where the dog came from. He shook his head. This was, and still is, a men’s homeless shelter. People were not dropping off stuffed animals for the junkies and drunks. I don’t know where the dog came from, but I kept him. Still got him. Anyway, my life is much better, and different, today. I’m set to graduate with a BFA next month. Life is really, really good. Thanks, Mom. I love you.”
22. The Nick of Time
“When I was a teenager, my maternal grandmother would come over every day after school and sit at our kitchen table while my mom cooked dinner. My dad worked late into the evening, and my grandfather was sick and heavily medicated at the time, so the two found company in one another. Being a self-absorbed teenager, I would usually do my own thing – homework, going to movies with friends, etc. – and would rarely feel compelled to sit down with her and my mom. One winter evening, my grandmother was sitting by our fireplace. I saw her sitting on our living room rug, short legs outstretched so she could warm her toes. Looking at her made my heart break a little. I felt pushed by something to go and sit with her. I lied my head in her lap.
And I asked her to tell me about what it was like to grow up in Greece during WWII. I learned so many amazing things about her life. I learned that her family of seven hosted three German officers in their home while she and her four siblings slept on the floor. The conversation got lighter toward the end. She told me that my grandfather had a lot of redeeming qualities, but she married him largely because ‘the sex was amazing.’ I learned more about my grandmother in that hour than I had my whole life. That night, around 3 a.m., I woke up to my mom sobbing on the kitchen floor, holding the phone to her ear. My grandmother had passed away suddenly of a heart attack.”
23. Dreaming Death 2
“When I was about 12 I had a terrible nightmare in which two planes collided in mid-air. It was extremely vivid and I woke up in a panic. My bedroom was right next to the family bathroom and after about 30 mins of lying in bed freaking out I noticed the landing light come on and knew that a parent was heading to the bathroom. Now by twelve I wasn’t the sort to bother my parents about nightmares any more, but I was convinced there was going to be a plane crash, so I rushed out to my mum and told her everything.
She said I was being stupid and that I should just read and try to get back to sleep. The next morning my mum comes rushing into my room and pulls me out of bed and has my dad with her. She asks me to tell him about my nightmare and then they both looked freaked out. They insisted that I went downstairs with them to watch the news. I thought they were pranking me or something but when I got down breakfast news was running a story about this. We later worked out that I’d woken up around about the time the crash itself took place. Nothing like this has happened since.”
24. Another witch? Another witch.
“My friend had told me that I would find out within 3 weeks that I was pregnant and it would be a boy. 3 weeks later, to the day, I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t find out that I was having a boy until 3 days before I had him. And my friend called me a month and a half before I had my son to tell me that I would have him on the 20th. Sure enough, after 36 hours of labor I had my son on Nov. 20th. I always thought it was kinda creepy that she got it right.”
25. “I was speechless too”
“It was nearing Christmas and one day when I came home from school my mother asked me to guess who we got a Christmas card from. Without hesitation I said, ‘From the people who ran the little motel on our summer trip to Michigan.’ She was speechless. I was right and I was speechless too.”
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