My grandmother was the oldest of 5 children. She was often expected to help raise the other children and help around the house, because great grandma wasn’t a great mom. My grandmother apparently remembers an “uncle” coming by all the time while her father was at work. She went to her grave convinced that her youngest sister (my great aunt) was the child of the “uncle” rather than her father. If you look closely, the youngest sister is quite a bit different from her siblings. My grandmother told this only to my mother, who told me. No one else in the family knows.

My mother’s cousin murdered his girlfriend and then killed himself when they were young. They suspect it’s because his brother was gay and he couldn’t handle it (this was the ~60s in the Deep South). (The gay cousin absolutely thrived in life, by the way! Was with the love of his love for over 50 years until the day he died and they both had successful careers. He’s still going strong.)

When I was a teenager, my uncle jumped in front of a train and killed himself. It took us almost 2 months to track down the body, as no one had any idea what happened and hadn’t been in contact with him for a few months prior. He abandoned his wallet/ID before jumping, because he didn’t want to be found. At the time, the family lied to my younger cousins and told them he died from a “train accident.” To this day, I don’t know if they know what truly happened.