It's been a week

Since Cousin Frances called

To tell me her mother died

And that she'd be

Flying in to San Diego

Later that day I picked her up

And we drove rainily north

To pick up her daughter Samira

At her special school

In Murrieta

Frances and I were joined by

Samira's counselor Mike,

Who kept referring to her as Samantha

I asked him about this

And he said that she

Liked going by that name now

Frances, Samira, and I

Stopped for Chinese food

And then headed further north

To Second Cousin Missy's in Yucaipa

I hadn't seen Missy in 25 years,

So it was nice to see her again

And meet her family

I had to head back that night

Because of a business meeting

Early the following morning

And another meeting at lunchtime

The next morning,

As Dan Greenwood and I were

Walking down some stairs

Outside the Netrologic offices,

Two women were coming up

With a little dog

Dan remarked that he had two

Little dogs like this one,

One of them named Samantha

Later, at lunch,

I was telling Frank Wadleigh

About my day the day before

I mentioned that Samira

Was now going by "Samantha"

I also mentioned that I had been

Picturing my family relationships

With Frances, Samira, and Missy

As if we were nodes in a network,

Where I could count edges separating us

To see how related we were

(My work concerns semantic distance)

Frank quipped that this would be

A form of "samanthic" distance

I did a double take

And then explained why this

Added to the existing coincidence

I thought about writing this all down

But didn't until now

Something which spurred me to

Finally commit this to writing

Was reading the author's note

At the end of Piers Anthony's

Latest Mode novel, Chaos Mode

In it he tells a story of

A woman named Jessica

And her daughter Samantha