Hey everyone, I just want to share my story here because you're among the few who could ever understand. My 3rd recommender's mother passed away I think last November, but she stressed that she was still committed to completing the recs for me. She stopped responding to emails once my final deadline passed (2 Jan), and last week I broke down and called the department she's a professor in at my alma mater. I asked the secretary to call her cell/personal phone for me, and just mention my name to her and that I was waiting for my recs. The secretary came back on the phone with me and said he'd just talked to my recommender, and that she had asked for my number and said that she would call me back. No call. And this is a woman I studied a lot with, and really felt like I clicked with, and she had said to me she would be "honored" to do my recommendations when I originally asked her.
I had that same panicking, horrible fear that every school would just reject me because my app is incomplete, so I called one of my top choices, and they said that my app will be considered even without the third rec. For those still stressing, maybe you should call one or two and see if you still have a chance somewhere. I haven't called anywhere else but that one school because I try not to get myself down about this, but it's really comforting to know that I'll at least be considered at one of the places I really wanted to go. On getting a third rec, I've mostly given up.