Know it's a bit old, but I've had some doozies in my life!
Co-worker was killed on the way to work in a car accident. Someone I was really close to. I found out by being called by my boss saying 'She's been killed, you need to cover her shift' Couldn't understand why he had so much trouble covering that shift.
I changed softball clubs this year, but had been in the same club for four years previously and was still very, very close with my team and my coach. When I went to a game was handed some black tape and told 'OldCoach died, we have to put this on for the old bugger' I didn't play that game.
This one thankfully didn't involve a death, but my dad had a biopsy when I was 21. he was told if he felt sick, go to the hospital (septicaemia) He refused and I kept trying to get him up and walking and finally my mum came and took him to hospital but said he'd be fine. I then couldn't contact my mother for the rest of the day, so was understandbly getting worried. About 8pm I hear the front door open and walk out only to see my grandfather and uncle, with both obviously having been crying. I went straight to the worst assumption and lost it on the living room floor. Thankfully he wasn't dead, but my brother and I needed to get to the hospital NOW and my mum didn't think anyone could call us with a straight voice and manage to convey it with me being in a condition to drive. (he was OK. It was a horrific week, as he not only had sceptecimia, but then had a reaction to the drugs and kept slipping in and out of a coma. Added to this, he just wanted to go home and could NOT understand how sick he was. Once he was better, to top it all off, he did end up having cancer so we then had to go through all that pain too)
To top that one off, estranged friends were the only ones told (as my father was convinced the husband, who he had been best man for would want to know. Never turned up.) outside family during that week. By the Saturday the crisis had passed, so my mum encourged me to go to softball. When I arrived heard a scream and a friend come running over demanding to know what was going on. Apparently her and her husband had run into estranged friends at the shops earlier that day. Heard all about their future trip to Europe and everything. Finished the conversation with 'Oh, Lauren'sMum called us, LaurensDad is in ICU and not expected to live past Wednesday' Of course, they couldn't contact anyone in my family (very close family friends, so had phone numbers for parents, myself and grandparents. None of us had charged phones at that point and no-one was home to answer landlines) before seeing me, so were fully expecting to hear that my father had died. That incident led to everyone accepting that estranged friends just simply didn't care anymore. (the sad side to that story is when estranged wife died, all their friends had been pushed away, so he had no support outside family left. He rang the mutual friends and told them not to tell my parents, which is a horrible position to put anyone in. They ended up breaking that, but my parents weren't going to intrude. He did call grandparents and tell them and asked if they'd think my parents would go. Their response was 'if you want them there, nothing will stop them from going' I think my dad, at the least, hoped it would bring the friendship back, but he choose not to)
