02-07-2017, 11:04 AM
So an uncle of mine passed away yesterday morning and his obituary was in the Tribune Review, today. Now, I have two memories of this uncle. One is when I was three years old and at my grandmother's funeral. The other was about twenty years ago at a sportsman's club in PA during a gun raffle. He didn't communicate much with his family and early on his wife divorced him and took their son (who was born about 3 days after me, I think, but I know in the same room I was born in as they discharged my mother and admitted his mother right after) with her. I don't know her name, but I know his, but I have had no contact with him since my grandmother's funeral.
I was reading his obituary and I noticed that, apart from there not being any service at all because of all of this estrangement, there is no city listed for his son. This tells me that my family still in PA doesn't know where he is these days. Over the years I've pondered trying to reach out to him, to find him on Facebook. His name isn't all that common and so I can narrow it down, but I have no idea what to say. I think I may have found him, today, actually, but I hesitate to send a message. "Hi, this is your older cousin by three days that you haven't seen in 30 years, how's it going?"
My dad's name and city is in the obituary, and so is my other uncle's, so I feel like maybe waiting to see if he reaches out would be best. I don't know for certain if I have the right person narrowed down on Facebook and so I don't want to go sending out random messages to people, and even if it is the right person, how do I know what his attitude will be towards his father's side of the family with whom he has had no contact with for the majority of his life. His fathers alcoholism is what spelled the end of his parents' marriage, and so I don't know how he feels about all of that.
Anyway, just kind of thinking "out loud" about all of this and seeing if anyone else has experienced similar situations and how it went down.
I was reading his obituary and I noticed that, apart from there not being any service at all because of all of this estrangement, there is no city listed for his son. This tells me that my family still in PA doesn't know where he is these days. Over the years I've pondered trying to reach out to him, to find him on Facebook. His name isn't all that common and so I can narrow it down, but I have no idea what to say. I think I may have found him, today, actually, but I hesitate to send a message. "Hi, this is your older cousin by three days that you haven't seen in 30 years, how's it going?"
My dad's name and city is in the obituary, and so is my other uncle's, so I feel like maybe waiting to see if he reaches out would be best. I don't know for certain if I have the right person narrowed down on Facebook and so I don't want to go sending out random messages to people, and even if it is the right person, how do I know what his attitude will be towards his father's side of the family with whom he has had no contact with for the majority of his life. His fathers alcoholism is what spelled the end of his parents' marriage, and so I don't know how he feels about all of that.
Anyway, just kind of thinking "out loud" about all of this and seeing if anyone else has experienced similar situations and how it went down.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
