KISSIN' COUSINS

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I was listening to a song on the radio today. Well, not just any song. And definitely not just any musician.

I mean, who can forget the incomparable Elvis Presley?

And the song?

Well, to back up a wee bit.

Okay, more than a wee bit.

Jean and I first met in the 4th grade; just short of sixty years ago.

She recalls one conversation of ours much better than I do.

“Royce, you know, if it weren’t for women, there wouldn’t be any babies.”

(And knowing what I only thought I knew, I almost responded with,

“Well now, that’s definitely a big duh!”)

But to which I actually responded,

“Well, it takes men too.”

Fast forward something just short of a decade during which we completed elementary school, junior high, and high school together, and enrolled at the same community college. Ultimately, we dated a while, subsequently went our separate ways, and married others.

Fast forward another decade.

By now we were both divorced, ran into one another at her place of business, resumed our dating relationship, and (lo and behold) I proposed marriage, and we “tied the (proverbial) knot;” all in the space of 4 months.

Well, to be sure it was rather quick and all that, but we’d known one another a couple of decades by that time, I’d been the first to enlighten her on “The Birds & the Bees,” she’d once joined me on my walk home from school, and played “Pen the Tail on the Donkey” at my 10th birthday party, we’d interacted throughout the course of primary and secondary schools, and we’d dated after graduation.

Speaking of music, (re. just about where I began this story) during our wedding ceremony I’d sang a solo to my new bride.

“So many nights, I'd sit by my window,

Waiting for someone to sing me her song.

So many dreams, I kept deep inside me,

Alone in the dark, but now you've come along.

And you light up my life,

You give me hope, to carry on.

You light up my days

And fill my nights with song.

Rollin' at sea, adrift on the waters

Could it be finally, I'm turning for home

Finally a chance to say, ‘Hey, I Love You’

Never again to be all alone.

And you light up my life,

You give me hope, to carry on.

You light up my days

And fill my nights with song.

You, You light up my life

You give me hope to carry on

You light up my day's

And fill my life with song

It can't be wrong when it feels so right

'cause you, you light up my life.”

It became OUR song.

Fast forward three decades.

I was watching some nature show on television, while Jean sat in the living room researching something to which I was not, at the time, privy.

Suddenly, she spoke,

“Royce, aren’t you related to the Dowling’s?”

To which I responded,

“Well, yes. My great grandmother was a Dowling.”

To which Jean queried,

“Are you related to Jabez and Rebecca Dowling?”

To which I again responded,

“Yes, they were my 4x great grandparents.”

Her next words caught me off guard,

“Uh. …They were mine too!”

“And when the dust settled” we discovered we were 5th cousins. (In subsequent months we discovered two more family connections, and learned we were cousins three different ways)!!!

(Had been all the time).

It gets even more interesting. For you see, simply as the result of our own three fold kinship...

I am my step-son's and step-daughter's cousin. My wife is my son's and daughters' cousin. My children and my wife’s children are cousins. My grandchildren by marriage are my cousins. My grandchildren are her cousins. My wife’s sisters are my cousins. My brothers and sister are my wife’s cousins. My nephews and nieces by marriage are my cousins. My nephews and nieces are her cousins. My father in law is my cousin. My mother in law is my cousin. My father is my wife’s cousin. My mother is my wife’s cousin!!! (Kinda like Ray Stevens’ “I Am my Own Grandpa”).

And that song I alluded to at the beginning of my story?

KISSIN' COUSINS

"Well I've got a gal, she's as cute as she can be

She's a distant cousin but she's not too distant with me"

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Given what it took my wife and I almost seven decades, (including thirty years of marriage) to discover, well, I think,

… It’s OUR new song.

by Bill McDonald, PhD