Father’s Day Blues
Father’s Day Blues By Michael Field Reworked from June 2022 Reflection – V2 – 1048 Words Returning from a trip to Yellowstone recently, I visited the famed LDS genealogical research center in Salt Lake City to resume my ‘on again / off again’ search for a long-lost cousin, the son of my father’s brother. Sporadically over the years, I have tried to connect with this ‘close’ relative whom I’ve never met. My father grew up physically separated from his brother and, as a child, the only way I knew this missing branch of the family tree even existed was from oblique references and disjointed segments of overheard conversations. While recounting these fragments of family history to the researcher helping me, I was reminded that the root of the disconnect is that I come from a line of less than exemplary fathers. When my father’s father, a ne’er-do-well alcoholic, abandoned his wife and two young sons, he triggered a sequence of estrangements, financial struggles, and ...
