Once upon a time, more than 40 years ago, I worked with a single lady who often talked about her cousin. It seems he used to come to Ottawa from time to time, and take her out on the town. I heard about him for close to 5 years, before I finally met him one evening when I happened to be at her place when he showed up. She had always referred to him as Cousin Ron, which amused me as I’d never heard anyone do that before.
Anyway, that evening, he had come for an evening out, and ended up with two females instead of one. From that point on, it was always me who got to go out with him when he wanted an evening out. We eventually married, and moved out of the city.
I had a dear old auntie in Ottawa, who I had a close relationship with. We always made a point of visiting with her when we went into the city. She eventually needed some in home care, and she liked the lady that was assigned that job. Time passed and stories were told, both to us, about her home care worker, and to the home care worker about us. Something clicked. It turned out the home care worker was another cousin of my husband’s. In a city full of people, we found that to be rather amazing.
Eventually my aunt needed to go into a nursing home, and I found her a spot in one within walking distance of my home. It came to pass that a nephew of hers, that I had never met, tried to phone her at her old apartment. When he found the phone had been disconnected, he worried that she may have died. He went through the Ottawa phone book, and called everyone who had my maiden name, trying to find out what had happened to this dear old aunt. Eventually he happened upon my brother, who told him our aunt was fine, and living out here near me. So, this cousin I’d never met before came out to visit me and I took him to see our aunt. This man quickly became my favourite cousin, and we had many visits back and forth over the next several years. I often referred to him as Cousin Bob, to differentiate him from all the many other Bobs I happen to know. The interesting thing though, was that he and my hubby had been in the army together. In other words, my husband has known him far longer than I have. I figure my hubby and I were definitely meant to be together, I guess, as this cousin connection thing just keeps happening over and over again.
Today one of my best friends showed me a photograph and I asked where it was taken. When she told me, I said I knew the place, but I’d never been to that side of the building. And then I mentioned that I am related, in some way, to the owners of that establishment. Apparently, so is she! It would be really cool if we turned out to be cousins too. I am now looking into that and trying to find the connection.
There seems to be a definite pattern here, as to who passes through my life. This world is a lot smaller than I thought!
That's really cool. What a small world this is! Years ago, I lived in Korea. There, I met a woman that lived in my Ottawa neighbourhood. We never met each other until we both moved to the other side of the Earth!
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