Death Notice

Clancy's great-uncle passed on this week. She apparently found out via an email from her mother about the funeral arrangements (instead of an email about the death itself whenever it happened).

The notification issue reminds me a bit of Grandmother Albrecht, my mom's mom. Our family ran a little closer to the Truman family line than the Albrecht one since the Truman hub was in Hamelon, only a couple hours away, while the Albrecht clan was based back in Carolina.

At some point I realized that we stopped making trips back to Carolina and when we did, we usually only got to see my Great Aunt Susan. When I finally asked my folks about this they told me that she had died a few years prior.

It was years before I ever let them hear the end of that.

Grandfather Albrecht died before I was born and Grandmother Truman died only recently. The only other death from that era was Grandfather Truman.

Mom told Dad over breakfast that the Steins had died in a car accident. The Steins were the elderly couple that they sold the house in Carolina to when I was only four and we moved to Dixona.

Later that day my father was crying in his room. My father was never much of a cryer so I asked him what was wrong. He told me that Grandfather Truman had died. I ended up being the one to tell Mom, not realizing that Dad hadn't yet.

That day holds some of my earliest memories.

Addendum: Turns out there was a message about the death on our answering machine the whole time. She worked the overnight last night so it was my fault. Oops.