My dad doesn’t like to talk about most of his life prior to having me. He’s very protective of his image and reputation, and I really have no idea who he is as a person, only as the father that raised me.

Am I gay?

My dad committed suicide when I was 5. I’ll never know why he did it.

My uncle doesn’t drive nor consume pork anymore after returning from Canada, but every time we ask about that, he doesn’t say anything useful.

So my theory is he hit a pig with a car and felt sorry or something

Some vague stories around my grandfather before they migrated that sound like a godfather film but which no one knitted anything about.

Someone stole a 20 dollar out of a hollowed out crucifix my grandmother had and they found the money ripped in half in the driveway and I got blamed for it when I didn’t do it.

Someone ordered payperview porn on the TV and I got blamed for it even though I didn’t know the fucking code and I wasnt home on the day and time it was bought. I’m still salty as fuck over this one.

When my father was a child, he, his siblings, and his parents were traveling in northern Mexico at night and had missing time and vague memories of a weird light and being carried by lots of little hands.

I’ve been told that my grandpa’s brother’s (granduncle?) face was on the $20 bill of a cult. He was definitely very much in the cult and it does seem they had their own currency on their creepy property, but the details I’ve been able to find are pretty scarce and I’ve never seen the supposed currency.

How great-grandpa caught syphilis? Towards the end, doctors said a lot of his ailments were because of that one, little issue. You can speculate, but…

This isn’t too exciting given the region, but I had a great-great-grandfather in the Appalachians who supposedly died in a domestic dispute. It was once mentioned, however, that said “domestic dispute” was actually my relative snitching on a bootlegging operation.

23 and Me says my cousin is my sister…?

One of my uncles died from a gunshot. I say it like that because most of my family doesn’t believe he committed suicide but was killed by his girlfriend. I was really young when it happened and I know almost no details. Seems rude to ask about it now and I don’t want to retraumatize anyone but I am quite curious of the circumstances and if it really was suspicious or if his family just didn’t want to accept that he was depressed and hid it away.

In the late 80s my uncle was heavily involved in Unix system administration and architecture at a major defense contractor. He was gay AF and smart as a whip. He had been hinting that he knew something important about the whole Iran Contra thing and then one day he just dropped dead. Like literally they had no explanation other than a sudden cessation of brain activity (there was a technical term I don’t remember). The family requested that his body be kept so that we could have a separate autopsy done, but mysteriously he was misrouted and instead was cremated. It was fishy as fuck. I’m not sure whether he was offed by the government or possibly entered witness protection. I just don’t believe the story that his brain just shut off.

A personal mystery for me is why I changed? As a young kid/toddler the depictions of me and stories are just absurdly wildly different of a personality. Very similar to the personality my sibling has. At some point around the age of 5 or 6 I just did a 180°. I was a fearless, extroverted, charismatic toddler and suddenly became an introverted, quiet, bookreading shut in.

I wasn’t sad or depressed or anything and I still did do stuff and had fun, but it was not in line with before

Years ago my mother was going through an old box of photos we brought with us when we moved to a new country. These were all in weird size formats, I guess it was developed on whatever size paper that shop had on hand that day. There were pictures of my mother and father when they got married, various family events and family members. Then there were at least 3 black and white (maybe purplish or orangeish?) polaroid sized photos of my father and mother with 2 babies about the same age, then there was another of my father, my mother, myself and some kid - we were both dressed alike more or less (short sleeve button up shirts and shorts) and were standing in front of the front door to one of the apartments we rented, me and the other boy were standing in front of my parents and an uncle and aunt besides my mother and father. The last one I saw was of me and this boy, on what I remember was my first day of kindergarten. Right after the picture was taken I remember crying as some kids do when their parent leave them at the entrance to a new school. I mean I still can feel the tears on my face to this day…I guess I was a little dramatic

The weird thing is, I remember all of my childhood friends, I remember us doing stupid things, I remember falling out of a swing and whacking my head so hard on concrete I saw stars. I remember us getting in trouble for going swimming in a nearby river when we were like 6 or 7. I remember waking up, I remember getting ready for school, I remember breakfast, I remember going to sleep. I remember all of these things, but I don’t remember this random kid from these photos. I’ve asked my mother about it once or twice, but she says she has no idea what I’m talking about. I’ve tried looking for the photos again, but I moved away a while ago and it’s bugged me all of my adult life. Did I just maybe have a really vivid dream after watching some tv show? Did I space out while we were going through those photos. I tell myself he was probably just a cousin that spent time with us. it’s just weird because I’m the only kid of that age group in the family, I was the first grand kid in both families there were no other kids my age in the family when I was growing up