I found an unexpected shred of… something yesterday. A VHS tape labeled “THOMAS REUNION” from the summer of 2000. Only when I started playing the tape did even the foggiest of memories of this experience come back to me. It was my father’s idea to drive me out to East Tennessee to meet the relatives I only ever knew from dreadful mutterings and deaths of questionable circumstance. Alcoholism plagued the family tree, it seemed, as did suicide and depression, though these folks likely never used the latter term.<\/p>\n
I am not close to nor do I maintain ties with any of my extended family on my father’s side. I never knew them except for meeting them on this one occasion. They seemed like fine people but somehow, for me, the magic of familial connections never really meant much. In this context, ruminating on being a genealogical sociopath, my past enthusiams for building out other peoples’ family trees and lineages seems out of character.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like any gathering of people there were some who seemed likeable, others not so much. One fellow seemed like he could not afford to pass up an opportunity to tell a New Yorker how much he hates New York. Somehow I ended up playing piano for everyone, with an on-the-spot job offer to play at a local church. I don’t remember who made that offer but I probably just laughed it off, big city asshole that some of these folks clearly assumed me to be.<\/p>\n
There is a portion of this video where my father and a distant cousin and I walk around the Thomas family cemetery, where I was told a free plot awaits me if only I should ask. Having wandered many cemeteries for many years I find it strange that I do not, with the exception of my father’s burial site, recall ever seeing my surname on a gravestone. Thomas is not an uncommon name. So it was what I guess you’d call the highlight of the journey to see a yard with several tombstones bearing the THOMAS name.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I cannot watch the video. It’s sad to me. I cannot mention it to my sister because she was not invited to this event and I’m not sure she even knows it occurred. I don’t know the specifics but they were not in touch for a long time. Nothing feels good today. Nothing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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