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I do agree with the other posters that people try to look for correlations in things, however, I believe the OP was just trying to mention a personal experience that related to Mr. O' Connor. Sorry for the loss BTW.
"It was definitely some puerto rican guy alright".-OJ Simpson, South Park

I totally agree with you, rockmail, no disrespect to the OP, of course.
I think many people seek out such patterns in order to make sense of certain events or "goings-on;" eg, not necessarily a grandparent's death, but, say, if they were to bump into a high school crush in a random city, years later after graduation. Again, some people might put a lot of significance into it, esp if both parties are say, recently divorced, but the fact remains that hundreds of millions of people DO NOT run into an old acquaintance every single day! In o238ther words, statistically, it has to happen to SOMEONE
But only PEOPLE give any relavance to such events (with that said, don't get me wrong - seemingly bizarre things can indeed throw me, but I can almost always chalk them up to statistics and chance.
"Giving $$ and power to gov't is like giving booze & car keys to teenage boys." PJ O'Rourke

What is the "strange coincidence"?
Approximately 6000 people died that same day in the United States alone.
Humans love to find connections and patterns, but there is zero significance that one of your relatives died on the same day as a celebrity.
Sorry for your loss though.