My dad died many years ago, but his younger brother, was still around and he and I exchanged emails and phone calls from time to time. As sometimes happens when you're younger and raising a family time flies and you get busy. You think oh I'll call later and then one day later never comes. That is what happened to me this week.
Several months ago, I accidentally stumbled onto a portion of the family tree and had been diligently emailing, calling or writing some very distant relatives. The portion of the tree was several generations ago and we were missing a few branches. I called my uncle but, unfortunately, he couldn't remember the exact details of how that branch was related to us, aside from we knew it was ancestor of his mother. As I got more details from the far flung relatives, I planned to pass on the information to my uncle. I even scanned in some old family documents I wanted him to see. But then I realized I had misplaced his email address when my email program changed and didn't email him right away. The messages from the newly found relatives dried up for a bit and I let the project fall to the side as I git side tracked with little league, school and the other things young families get caught up in.
Then, about three weeks ago, I found his email address and I finally remembered to forward him the information. A few days later he called me, but I was out with my son. I called him back a few days later, but he was out. When he didn't return my call after a few days, I kept thinking I have to call him again, I have to call him again, but it was always fairly late in the evening when I remembered and I thought to myself, I'll remember tomorrow. Of course, when tomorrow came, I forgot. After quite a few tomorrows, over this past weekend I finally remembered -- and at a reasonable time! I called and no one answered, so I left a message. "Phone tag, you're it!"
Then came the evening, a few days later, when I came home from work and saw the answering machine flashing. The message was from my cousin's wife, asking me to call her so she could give me some news about my uncle. It was then I knew my uncle was with my father and grandparents once again. I looked up at my grandparents' wedding photos from 80 years ago, which are now so old that they are closer to being a decorative picture then a family picture, and thought, wow, that is it for that nuclear family as my grandparents and now, both their children, are dead.
My cousin said my uncle died in his sleep, apparently very peacefully. He had been in declining health the last few years. He wasn't that old, but I guess he was old enough. Now my uncle and his family had left this area a long time ago and I hadn't seen him in over a decade, probably since my brother's wedding. My cousins didn't know many of our fathers' relatives so he asked me if I could pass the news onto our dads' cousins. Since I knew most of them I agreed and got out the phone book. That's when I got the next surprise, how few were left.
Of that generation, our fathers were generally the youngest. The oldest of those cousins were in WW2, but our dads were too young for that, and my uncle was too young even for Korea. But it was a big family and I remember going to family events via the family's landsmanschaften (a Jewish family or town group immigrant benevolent societies formed and named for members’ birthplace in Eastern Europe, most of my great-grandparents' generations were the immigrants), especially when my grandparents' generation was still mostly around 30 years ago. I'm talking of events, usually once a month that if only 30 people showed up grandmothers and aunts were "annoyed" (to put it nicely). On a really good day, usually someone's 50th or 60th anniversary, there could be 80 people at these events easily.
But that was a long time ago and the grandmothers are long gone. However, I hadn't realized how many of the cousins were gone until I started making the calls. I made just 6 or 7 calls, wi th one of my dad's cousins passing on the news of my uncle's passing to a few more cousins, making the total 10 (and several of those were wives of the actual cousins). That's it, 10. Where did all those cousins go? At first I thought some were just cousins we lost track of after my dad passed, but then I thought about it and realized that no, I know where they are -- the same cemetery my dad is.
Here I am 40, with an ailing mother, and, with another death from my parents' generation, I realize that it won't be much longer until I am the senior generation. How did that happen? It feels like it was just yesterday I was in first grade playing with my friends. In reality, it was just yesterday I picked up my first grade son while playing with his friends. Time flies. Guess I should've called my uncle last week and not waited until last weekend.
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