My Uncle

An uncle that I barely knew and hardly got along with was found dead in his apartment on the 21st. By all estimates he had been dead for a week before he was found, which is tragic. After the death of my father and this uncle, there are only a few of us Steinmeijers left, an aunt who currently resides in Indonesia, working for the government who I’ve met only once, and an uncle I’ve never met. When my father passed away, my uncles (both the one I’ve never met and the one that just passed away) decided not to come to the ceremony. I knew from conversations with my father that when their mother passed away when they were all in their teens it was a rather traumatic experience for all of them, which made many of them decide never to attend a funeral again. This belief was reinforced when the remaining uncle decided he didn’t want to have anything to do with it, claiming that he was “done with funerals.” When my father passed away I also managed to get in contact with my aunt, who turned out to be working in Bangladesh at the time. This time around she was as unable to either attend to the funeral or attend the funeral. So the task falls squarely on my shoulders. It’s not as hard this time around, since I hardly knew the man and my involvement can be kept to a minimum.

I got a nice, reinforcing and uplifting e-mail from someone, which brightened my day and mood a little bit.

That’s a very nice way of saying that I’m the one who shovels the shit, but it made me smile. :)