Blast from the Past

Mama called the other day, asking a question she has asked me often of late. "I need your uncle's date of birth. Have you asked your brother to look it up for me, yet?" I answered "No" as I've answered her a dozen times already. But since I was on the computer and stranger things have occurred when I was playing on the computer, I thought I'd just look up my uncle by name. I was a little leery. He wasn't the most pleasant person in the world and had an unsavory reputation. Heaven knew what I might find!

But to my surprise what I found was information related to his birthdate, the very information my mom wanted. And I found it on my dad's old geocities account. It was still there. After all this time, though he died two years ago, hadn't posted in years due to his illness. Just hanging out in cyberworld waiting for me to stumble upon it once more.

It felt eerie and creepy and bittersweet all at once, as I read the family history he'd outlined on the page. Then I clicked on the link for family photos and found myself staring down history. What fun! There were photos there I'd never seen before and faces of relatives I'd had the joy of knowing, but who were long gone.

And towards the bottom of the page were the three of us: myself and my two brothers. My dad, who'd disappeared from our lives for 7 years before reappearing, my dad who rarely spoke to us, never called and never wrote the last 7 years he lived next door, had kept those photos in his wallet for years.

Every single person in the photos is no longer living except myself (obviously), my youngest brother, our cousin Diane and possibly cousin Leonard. I'm not sure about him... But there was my dad, who for so many years had seemed to withdraw and avoid contact showing off these photos on his blog with pride and a real feeling for family. How sad that he'd rather live with the memories of what had been than to keep building memories to store away, to cherish.
Another robbery, another bit of thievery by the the old deceiver, Satan.

http://www.geocities.com/chasga310/photos.htm