Puzzle

I was close to thirty before I discovered the missing piece — I had no idea who my maternal Grandfather was. More than that, though, I suddenly realized that I couldn't recall the subject having ever been mentioned among my Mother's family. It had never come up at family gatherings, certainly not since I had been old enough to be aware of it. There were no pictures, no letters, no remembrances. Apart from a name obtained through marriage, it was as though he never even existed.

And really, I had never thought to ask. Just as my parents had divorced when I was very young, and it all seemed perfectly normal to me that my Father wasn't around, it never seemed the least bit odd to me that there had been no mention of my Grandfather. It just was. By that time it wasn't, I was estranged from my Mother's family, and I wasn't about to ask. I've been left to wonder, instead.

My Grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. Her obituary mentions she was predeceased by a "friend of many years," but says nothing of a former husband. (Perhaps this is the custom of the obituary. Her Brother — would that be my great Uncle? — passed away just over a week later, and his obituary mentioned nothing of his former wife, who had died ten years earlier.)

For a time, I thought might have died during WWII, but with two daughters born during and just after the war ended, that seems unlikely. And there were no ritual visits to leave flowers at a grave site, not that I could remember. I've always wondered — was the enforced silence was meant to hide some sort of family secret? Divorce seems obvious, but could there be more to it than that?