We had a house

full of company and were about to sit down for dinner when the phone rung.

Daniel answered and listened at length before asking the caller to repeat

her name. Then he handed me the phone and said, "Maybe you better

take it. Says she's a long-lost fourth cousin or something."

Turned out

to be a third cousin calling from California. We only spoke briefly since

my guests and dinner were waiting. Then on Sunday afternoon, after the

house had been vacated, I called her back. Two hours later, we had agreed

that we would both subscribe to AT&T's new $19.95 per month unlimited

calls program.

I hung up a

far more enlightened descendant of my grandparents, specifically of my

grandmother on my dad's side. I had learned that macular degeneration

had struck a great number of people on Daddy's side of the family. The

gene for some kind of Mediterranean anemia was quite prevalent too. But

that was nothing to everything else I had heard.

I hung up feeling

like I had made a connection whose time had come. You see, I had no memory

for a long time of parts of my childhood. Then, about 20 years ago, I

was in a gift shop with a friend, looking at some antiques when I smelled

something that smelled like my grandmother's house and suddenly the memories

began to slip back into my mind and heart. They didn't rush in. Not at

all. But they did start coming