Sarah Cahalan '14 | September 14, 2018

A few weeks ago, I got a call from my grandmother.

“You know my niece, Martha?” she asked.

Vaguely, I thought. As the youngest of 12 children, my grandma has dozens of nieces and nephews, many her own age and older, few of whom I’ve met — making “do you know my niece” a more difficult question than it sounds. But I dug through the Ms in my mental Rolodex of relatives. . . .Ah! Martha is the one who lives in South Bend.

“Yes!” I replied.

“Well, her great-niece is starting at Notre Dame this year as a freshman.”

Okay, I thought.

“Her name is Sarah.”

Oh, weird.

“She’s living in Howard.”

If Grandma was hoping for a big reaction, she got it with that piece of news. A cousin I’d never heard of had the same first name as me, chose the same college that I did, and now had been randomly placed into the same dorm I lived in for four years? Talk about some entertaining cocktail banter.

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