This is quite long

Here's every detail, as I remember it.

In the women's dressing room--temple workers' dressing room--I was putting my packet away when a woman on the next shift, midshift, spoke. She had just put on her white clothing and was really talking to herself because she couldn't find her name tag. I spoke to her and asked where she thought it might be. "At home or in my bag," she said. I said, "I'm going to hope for the bag."

She found it, in her bag, and gave me credit, you know, just kidding. I said, "You're a Tanner, aren't you?" She answered, "Yes. How do you know?" I told her I had seen her before.

As she put on her name tag, I looked to see her first name. Christine.

"Are you . . . " but she interrupted. "I'm not related to all the famous Tanners around here. Too bad because they sound like fun."

I said, "You're probably a decent person anyway. Carlene is her name, right?"

"Yes. But my husband is not from here. He's from Milford."

"Milford, Utah?"

"Yes."

"I've been there," I said, which we both agreed was quite remarkable because Milford is not famous or big or even known at all by most people.

So we were connected, sort of.

I said, "My roommate married a Tanner. She was from Carey, a Benson. Lauralie Benson."

"Lauralie Benson married my husband's brother, Gary."

Now that got me. Small world, as they say.

I said, "Wow, I feel like we're kind of related."

Then she told me Lauralie's husband had died soon after they got home from their mission. He had severe dementia. Lauralie, she told me, is doing fine.

I asked, "How's your husband?"

"He's just fine," she said. "One brother died of cancer, one of dementia, another of cancer."

"Is he the only one left?"

"Yes, but he's fine."

It is all quite remarkable to me because two days ago I was thinking about Lauralie. Our speaker in Sacrament meeting was from Carey, so I told him I'd been there and mentioned the names I knew from there: Benson (That's Ezra Taft Benson's brother, Valdo, Stake President and Lauralie's father), Barton, as in John Barton, Lauralie's boyfriend when she was my roommate, and as in Barbara Barton, John's sister--who married Blaine Tingey--and who was our other roommate.

At that time I could not remember Lauralie's married name, Tanner. I remembered it last night, Tuesday. So is it weird? Or was it "meant to be" so that Christine Tanner and I could make this little connection? Not that we'll be long friends, just that such things are very nice.