Making up for lost time

I just called someone I have wanted to call for about 17 years. How can I explain this. She used to date my sister's brother in law. We found out she was my step 2nd cousin once removed. That sounds pretty far off but basically it means that she is the step grandaughter of my father's cousin. My father and this cousin remained close, but I only met her when these two started dating. Unfortunately it did not work out between them and they each moved on to marry other people. Our other connection, we share the same anniversary dates - just different years. She is a great fun loving person and although we said we would keep in touch, it did not happen.

Fast forward about 17 years to this past fall. Her father died. I did not know him well. When I read the death notice I almost fell off the chair. It listed all of the family members including her and her husband. Here is the complicated part...

I have been researching our family histories. It is my primary hobby and for almost anything you can say to me I can have a resonse that relates to genealogy. Back to the obituary... my step cousin's last name matched one I had only recently found for my husband's family. I did some quick searching and found that her husband's great grandmother was a sister to my husband's grandmother. Again, it may sound distant - but it the same relation that she and I have and it was an amazing find. You see, my husband did not know his family history at all.

We went to visit the family. We shared our discovery and met some of our new-found relatives. They were astonished too. They did not know about our line of the family. Now my step cousin is our cousin by marriage too!

Again, we vowed to get together. Today I made the phone call and we will meet tomorrow. When we spoke it was like time had no effect. We laughed and it was so easy. That's family.