Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I met up with a first cousin of mine last night. Not unusual, you might think. But it was. We hadn’t seen each other for some 11 years (since our mutual grandfather’s funeral in Nov 1995, we believe), even though we live in the same city. Life somehow gets in the way, which is really no excuse, but that’s how it is. When we were kids, our respective families would share the kids – we’d go to them for a week of the school holidays and they’d come to us for another week. I guess it gave both sets of parents some time off parenting. So we sort of grew up with these cousins, and of all the cousins (not that there are many), my sister and I were closest to these ones on our Mum’s side of the family.

So how did we run in to each other?

Long story, but a guy I’ve known FOREVER married a girlfriend of mine some 15 years ago or thereabouts. She and I keep in pretty good contact and she told me her step-daughter (his daughter) was now 23 and a professional musician and was playing at a venue in Fremantle last night to launch her new CD. My girlfriend was going to be away so she asked if we’d like to go along and add some support. Which we did. This is not something we’d normally do, especially on a mid-week night.

And guess who was playing as a session muso in her band? My cousin! Really weird. Here are two very different branches of my life coming together in the one place – a place where we wouldn’t normally go – without either side knowing that there was a mutual connection.

Serendipity? Coincidence? I don’t think so…