Kinda had this happen. My ex-partner and close friend - "my rock" as I called her - Amanda "Moo" Hearn died a few years ago, just a few weeks after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I'd not called her for a couple of months. Kept meaning to. Then I suddenly had this urge to know how she was, and called, but the number had been disconnected, I think, so I called her sister who said "Oh, I'm so sorry Toby, Moo died yesterday." So yes, that Charles Hanson Towne poem (elsewhere on this thread) rings true for me. I email friends and call them occasionally and flippantly say "Hey, you're alive!" (I moved to the US six years ago and haven't been in touch quite like I used to be) and they don't realize I actually mean it. I hold a lot of guilt inside, dreading learning of another friend's death in a similar manner. Good to read this thread.