So somewhat recently, my great-uncle passed away. I know that a lot of people aren’t really familiar with their great-uncles or aunts, but my family is really big, and because of that when we get together we ALL get together. So not just my grandparents and their kids and grand-kids, it was always my grandparents and their siblings and all THEIR kids and grand-kids. So, grand total, Christmas was usually like 65+ people, insane right? And not that it matters, but this is all on my mom’s side.
So my grandma had an older brother, and we’ll call him Franklin, that’s a pretty good name for a great-uncle. So ‘Gruncle’ Franklin was always a really sweet guy. I never really got the chance to talk to him outside of the very short regular “oh how are you, what have you been up to” catch up talks at the big gatherings. But even from the small amount of time I was able to spend around him, he had this specific look in his eyes. In the past I wasn’t really sure what it was, just some sort of general world weariness, you know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever really looked at the eyes of an older person. But for him it was different, there was this extra layer to him, I won’t say shifty because that seems rude. Just that, he sort of evaded understanding. All his speech and movement was so specific that it seemed beyond just regular quirks., and he always stood out as an anomaly to me, since he didn’t really seem to be on the wavelength as anyone else in the family.
About 4 months ago, I got a small email from my grandpa. This was normal, with such a big family he often sends out little bulletins about what people are up to. This one was different though, as it was a very short and succinct statement about how my Great-Uncle Franklin had just passed away. He was 97 years old, survived by three kids and 9 grand-kids, died peacefully in his sleep, etc. It’s not that I WASN’T sad when I saw the news, it definitely was upsetting, but i wasn’t full on heartbroken. I didn’t really know the guy, he was my great-uncle, who really knows their great-uncle? In addition to that, I hadn’t seen him in probably 8-9 years since I moved out of state for college, so the whole thing felt very hollow and distant. That being said, I had the time and money to go home for his funeral, and i hadn’t seen my family in a while so i went.
This is where the weird stuff starts. The first thing I noticed was this guy at the funeral, probably around 60 years old, bald, really intense eyebrows, nice plain suit. I didn’t recognize him at all, and so I asked my grandma, assuming she knew basically everyone there. She said she didn’t know who he was, and assumed he was an old friend or work colleague. The second thing was that it was a closed casket funeral. As far as I am aware he had no religious reasons for doing this, and since he died peacefully it’s not like there was excessive damage that couldn’t be repaired during the embalming process. Once again I asked my grandma about this and she simply shrugged and said that it was apparently one of the details he had listed in his funeral arrangements, ones which he’d had made for a while. Needless to say that this made my imagination go a bit crazy with theories, but I tried to keep it cool, being at a funeral and all. Third, there were several bouquets of flowers with no cards or names attached to them, which i know isn’t really a big deal, but in retrospect i do find it somewhat odd considering what my current theory is.
Afterwards at the reception I was talking to my grandpa. I wanted a little more background on Franklin but didn’t really want to bother my grandma anymore, since I could tell that the longer the day went the harder this was for her. So I hit up my grandpa with the usual questions, where was he born, what was he like, what was his job etc. And most of it was pretty standard or stuff I already knew but wanted to confirm. The one that stood out to me though was his answer about my Great-Uncle’s job. At this my grandpa very genuinely shrugged and said he didn’t know, which I thought was weird, since they had been brother in laws for 70+ years at that point. He could tell I was confused by that and indicated to me that, all Franklin ever really said about anything was that he ‘worked for the government’.
After that grandpa got pulled away to help my grandma with something, but it was all sticking in my head. From the strange man at the funeral, to the closed casket and anonymous flowers, and now the fact that Franklin had ‘worked for the government’ in some sort of capacity? It could be nothing of course, but my mind is spinning with all the possibilities, especially considering all the stuff the U.S. government has done over the past century, and knowing that my great-uncle would have been around for a lot of really interesting times.
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So I typed all that out a couple days ago and meant to post it, but got really busy with work. Good thing too, because there have been two really fascinating updates.
So I snagged the binder of Nat Geos, the insurance papers, the photo album and ‘Project Tantalus’ folder and put them in my car. I’m not sure how legal this was, but I’m pretty sure most of the stuff in the house was going out in a garage sale anyway.
Then of course like the world was laughing at me, later I saw the bald guy from the funeral come into the house, go upstairs, I’m assuming to the attic, and then come back down 20 minutes later looking very concerned. Nobody else really seemed to notice him, and I only did because I kept thinking about that creepy photo and glancing over at the stairs, and saw him by coincidence. So yeah if I go missing soon it was him. I am being partially serious, something about him gives me the chills. I might be paranoid here but I’m legitimately a little freaked out. I could have sworn I saw him outside my apartment the other day, but when I went to look closer he was gone.
I’ll take a look through the items I found and see if I can pry more stories out of my uncle, and then keep you all posted.