Quote:
Originally Posted by graciegirl
You are wise to look at it like that. Not all of us have story book families or happy beginnings. I hope we all have enjoyable years here together in lower Paradise.
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I guess it is time for the rest of the story. Indeed, I found my cousin after knowing and wondering about her for 40 years, but at the same time, I also found out what my uncle did in addition to deserting her and her mother. I have shared it with my cousin and we both are trying to come to grips with a dark family secret.
Several years after deserting her and several years before I was born, he embezzled money from the large brokerage firm where he was a broker. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he boarded a train from one city to the city of his birth and managed to escape the waiting US Marshalls. He then hid in Shanghai China for 8 months until he was found, arrested and returned to this country for trial and jail. As our family was "socially prominent" according to the newspapers and we counted many well known legal figures in our lineage, this was international news. I discovered AP photos and coverage of this in all the national newspapers of the time. US Marshalls were watching ships manifests when he disappeared and it was a big national scandal for a year or longer. There were many newspaper photos of my uncle, always smiling, in the company of officials. My father who was the most honorable person ever spent his life protecting me and my sister from this. I always knew there was something unspoken about my uncle. I discovered all of this the same day that I found my cousin. We have talked and shared all this which was news to both of us and have decided to just look forward and be happy in having each other.
We suffered a lot of shame, loss and sorrow. She, the loss of her father and me, the shock of finding out that the uncle I adored was guilty of such a crime. I can only imagine what my grandparents and my father must have experienced while my uncle was hiding in China.
No we absolutely do not all have storybook families, but this is one really big happy ending to years of loss.