I hope people don’t mind me sharing. Stop now if you do, but I think it’s interesting.

I think the best place to start this story is with the death of my maternal grandfather. He was a loving husband, and doted on his 5 girls. During the height of the Great Depression (1939), he died of pneumonia, when my mom was 7.

My Australian immigrant grandmother lived in LA County, far from her only family in San Francisco. Looking for help and support, she married a man she met in a bar.

Perhaps not surprisingly, my step grandfather was an alcoholic. He was also abusive when he drank. He beat my grandmother regularly. She tried to protect the children, sometimes successfully, from beatings. Home life, as my mom described it, was Hell. Somehow during this time, 3 more children came along, a girl (Pauline) and 2 boys.

I’m not sure what the criminal reporting requirements were in those days, or why they waited so long, but when my mom turned 18, she reported my step grandfather to the police. I believe he was jailed for a bit, which was both a blessing and a hardship for the family.

Through the really hard years, the children were helped by church members, and the older ones (including my mom) were converted. Technically, their real dad was a member, though inactive, so this association is what sent them that direction. My mom and her oldest sister were married in the temple to good men. Shortly after that, the next sister, Norma, also married a man she then sent off to the war in Korea.

In early August, 1953, exactly 69 years ago this week, while my mom was pregnant with my oldest sister, my dad answered a phone call in the middle of the night. Norma, my grandmother, and the other 5 kids at home, drove up to San Francisco to visit family, but didn’t make it. They were in a head-on collision that killed my grandma, and 5 of my mom’s siblings. Pauline, 9, was the only survivor, but was seriously injured.

My step-grandfather (out of jail, I guess) ended up with custody of Pauline. He wouldn’t allow my mom or aunt to take her, and legally they couldn’t. Nonetheless, Pauline always blamed her oldest half sisters for what she had to endure living with him. This really messed her up emotionally and psychologically.

She had 2 girls from her first marriage. When I was 3.5, the 3 sisters got together at Pauline’s pool with all their kids. Mom was nursing my baby brother as all of us kids were in the pool, and I was on the steps. I jumped too far, and nobody noticed.

Eventually, my mom hopped up, wondering where I was, and saw me at the bottom of the pool, completely blue. Pauline dove in and pulled me out, my other aunt (just having finished a First Aid course) gave me mouth to mouth. I was rushed to the hospital, and spent 3 days there, but recovered completely (insert brain damage jokes here). That pool day was the last time I ever saw my cousin Doryne, or her sister Dana for that matter.

Pauline removed herself from contact with her sisters, only communicating rarely, and then it was toxic. She was an alcoholic, like her dad, probably trying to drown her demons. One of the few times we did hear from her was to let us know her daughter Dana had been murdered (by her boyfriend).

Six years ago, my mom died. I did some digging to track down Pauline’s number, and discovered I had another cousin named Juli, who was in her forties. I arranged to stream the funeral so Pauline and Juli could watch. That helped with a little healing.

Juli and I became friends, not just long-lost but reunited cousins. She is an atheist, I am a member of the LDS church, she’s a liberal Democrat, I’m a conservative Republican. She has never been married, and doesn’t want children, and I have 6 kids through 27 years of marriage. We are very different, but I’m really the closest family she has, even though she has never met me in person. Her half-sister Doryne has lived in Florida most of her life, and the two aren’t close.

Over the last 6 years, we have shared photos on Facebook (she shared one of the pool where I almost drowned), we have texted, we have called. I have told her I love her, and she has for the first time in her life heard that with no strings attached.

Doryne flew out from Florida today. Juli told her about me, and they both called me this afternoon (on speaker phone). I introduced myself, told them about my amazing wife (Juli has heard about her for 6 years now). I told them my kids are my joy, and I love being with them. I found out Doryne lives near my company headquarters in Tampa, and we made plans to meet up when I’m out there. I told them real, normal things. None of these things were normal to them. They never had any of that. They never saw any of that. They told me their family never hugged. They are nervous around larger families. They were also abused as children. They have never had real family love and togetherness in their lives.

Shortly after I told them I loved them, and we hung up, Juli texted me. They won’t be having a funeral, there isn’t really anybody to attend. They are cremating their mom tomorrow, and spreading her ashes over the graves of their grandma, aunts, and uncles.

Juli asked if the two of them could drive up to visit me in Utah, to get to know me. I said “absolutely”, so I’ll be taking a few days off this week. They said it would be very healing for them to get to know one another, and to get to know me and my family. They said they are unbalanced, and they want to see what “normal” is. I assured them we aren’t exactly normal, but we’re a good crazy, and we will love them.

I also told them they would be getting hugs, so to be prepared.

That is a lot of tragedy. I’m hoping for a lot of healing this week, and in the years to come.