I AM MY OWN GRANDPA

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Ray Stevens has a large number of comedic routines on YouTube, including one titled, "I Am My Own Grandpa."

I can relate

Well, at least I can relate now. Not so much during the first seven decades of my life. Of course, I don't expect you to understand. But, by the time I finish my narrative, perhaps it will become clearer.

I first met my wife, Jean, in 4th grade. And if my calculations are accurate, this was about 65 years ago. (To see that number in print, well, it is a bit startling, to say the least). Jean and I attended primary, middle and high school together, and dated briefly after we graduated. However, for whatever reason, we went our separate ways, married other people, produced a total of five children, and met again after our respective divorces in 1980; at which time we began to date again, and married one another a few months later.

And, as with any marriage, especially a blended marriage, we faced our own challenges, and experienced trouble, trial and turmoil, as well as our own fair share of joy, prosperity and happiness.

Billy Joel sings a song, "And So It Goes." And these four words adequately describe the nature of not only our lives, but the lives of everyone on earth; married or not. After all, life is a series of moments and experiences.

And thus, our lives have fallen together over the course of the last forty years, until perhaps three years ago. And it was then that everything changed.

You know that song that Elvis sang, "Kissin' Cousins"?

My wife was sitting in the dining room, and I was seated in the living room. (She was doing some family research on her laptop computer at the time). There is a wall which separates the two rooms with a door-sized entranceway in between. Suddenly, from the dining room I hear her disembodied voice,

"Don't you have some Dowling's in your family tree?"

To which I replied,

"Yes. Yes, I do."

Now, Jean responded with,

"I just discovered some Dowling's in my family tree. Have you heard of Jabez and Rebecca Darling Dowling?"

I paused, and slowly said...

"Uhhh, yes. They are my 4x great Grandparents."

Now Jean responded in kind.

"They are also my 4x great Grandparents!"

I'm not all that good with math, but it wasn't all that hard to compute our relationship.

I spoke.

"Uhmmm, you and I are 5th cousins!"

Since this momentous discovery, my wife and I have come across two other family connections. We are also 6th cousins through a different line, and an unknown degree of kinship through a third line. We are related at least three different ways! (Perhaps if we had had children together, they would have had a third eye in their foreheads, or six fingers on each hand)!

But it gets more complicated.

Whereas, my wife and I are cousins, my children and her children from our first marriages are also cousins to one another. Not only so, but I am my step-children's cousin, and my children are also my wife's cousins. My father and my wife's father were cousins, and my mother and my wife's mother were cousins; (though all four parents passed before we became aware of the fact). Our respective grandchildren are also cousins, and we are cousins to one another's grandchildren. And finally, my brothers in law and sisters in law are my cousins, and my brothers and sister are, well, you know.

The jury is still out, but before it's over, I may discover I am my own Grandpa!

by Bill McDonald, PhD