She had taken ill in February and passed in April. During that time, I would wake up around 4 to 4:30 am, a lot. I can’t quite say it was every day, but it was enough to bring attention to the time of day it was and, needless to say, annoying. Granted, I was stressed about my mom being sick, work, and daily life all at once, so, of course my sleep would be affected. However, over the course of those months, I mentioned my sleeping habits to my niece in conversation, and she said she had been waking up at the same time, almost every morning. Of course, we stared at each other, got goose bumps, and tried not to analyze it too much.

The connection we would come to make of it was that my mom passed away at about 4:30 am on April 7.

Personally, I found the Boris episode downright freaky, because coming out with a name as random as Boris is not a common occurence, whereas getting a phone call from your daughter or running into an acquaintance in the supermarket is.

The Boris thing, I don’t have any explanation for—I’m not saying it’s psychic—I’m just saying I think it was a notch weirder than most coincidences.

I’ll give you a weirder one (no, not the really really weird one). I was telling my then boyfriend about my aunt, showing him which paintings in the living room she had painted and telling him how much I admired her and how important she was to me. The phone rang; it was my mother telling me that an elderly female cousin had died, and my boyfriend thought it was my aunt. He couldn’t understand why I was taking it so well. I laughed and said, “You thought that was about my aunt? I would have been a blubbering idiot if that had been my aunt!”

Two weeks later, my aunt went to the ER with a distressing symptom, and the next day learned she had terminal cancer. (True to my prediction, I was a blubbering idiot.) She died four months later.

Of course it’s just a coincidence…But I would say it’s a much less likely coincidence than others.