Yesterday I had lunch downtown with my cousin Corri.
I’d never met her before.
It seems impossible, in this Internet age, that I didn’t know I had a cousin living 20 miles from me, that we wouldn’t have found each other through some combination of Facebook and Google and other family members telling us about one another. But until last month, when Corri flew to Missouri for Mimi’s funeral and ran into my parents, she had no idea I lived in the Boston area. Me? I was clueless until she found me on Facebook the following week. And yesterday we finally met up for lunch, and marveled at the wonder of finding each other.
“I think we share the most wonderful family in the world,” Corri wrote to me in that initial Facebook message. And yesterday, it was such fun to compare notes on different members of that family, and talk about the places where our branches intersect. Our grandmothers were sisters; our dads are first cousins; I’m not sure if that makes us second cousins or first cousins once removed or whatever, but I know it makes us family. She remembers my grandpa as “Lefty,” his longtime nickname; I have vague memories of her grandmother, Nina, from when I was very small. My dad and his brothers idolized her dad, who was the cool older cousin (and quite the college basketball star in his day). Corri hadn’t seen my parents in thirty years until last month, but she remembers them visiting her family in Colorado when she was a child.
My Mimi had a large collection of costume jewelry (one of her many collections, which also included teacups, Sunshine Biscuit tins, shoes, canned goods, and funky antiques). All the women of the family chose a piece to wear at her funeral, and got to keep them afterward. And yesterday Corri gave me the piece she had chosen to wear: a small pin made of green stones in the shape of a butterfly. She could not have known that green is one of my favorite colors – nor that Margaret (who had the idea of everyone wearing Mimi’s jewelry at the funeral) was particularly fond of butterflies.
I am grateful, today, for the warmth of family – for the bond that immediately draws people together, no matter if they’ve never met before. I’m grateful for green butterfly pins and first-time-reunions and good talk over salad and soup. And I’m thrilled to have made another connection, another place to know and be known.
cakes, tea and dreams 
How fun!
And, it makes you second cousins. 🙂 Corri’s dad would be your first cousin once removed.
I have dozens of second cousins I’ve never met in Michigan. (One of my mom’s aunts had 10 kids…and a correspondingly huge number of grandkids). A trip to Michigan to meet them all is on my bucket list!
I “found” a cousin at the dance studio where the girls dance. Like you and Corri, our grandmothers were also sisters, and our moms are first cousins. Since I don’t have any cousins nearby, Kristi and I have latched onto each other as family and friends.
Her daughter, Amy, is a “big girl” dancer (en pointe). I love that my girls claim her as cousin and that Amy and Kristi celebrate my “little girl” dancers as well.
Discovering family and new people we wish to love is such a wonderful feeling, particularly in times of sadness and darkness. So happy you met Corri, and that you’re, as always, finding a way to convey the light to us.
Katie, what a beautiful connection! And how wonderful that she gave you such a meaningful pin, something that can be a touchstone during this time of mourning. Blessings to you, friend.
Wow, that’s an amazing story! How great, how comforting to find family so close. So happy for you.
Isn’t it precious how when we’re hurting, God reaches out to comfort us with tender mercies like this? Loved your post.
I have a similar situation with my cousin Bonnie. Our grandmothers were sisters, and we live in separate states, but through Facebook and my blog we have discovered we have so much in common, even though we’ve only met in person a handful of times in our lives.
We’re planning a “real” get together very soon 🙂
[…] a teacup or two when they sort things out, and I already have a green butterfly pin given to me by a cousin after Mimi’s funeral. But Dad brought a few treasures back for me from his last trip to […]
[…] do to my uncles and aunts and cousins who live nearby. But I think of her when I have lunch with Corri, whose grandmother was Mimi’s sister, and when I see the heirloom books from Neosho on the […]