No reply from a long lost relative........why? (wife, spouse, father)

[murph1982]

Hello,
Many years ago back in 1975 I had an Aunt and Uncle who I cared deeply about and were special to me as I was growing up. I was only twelve years old at the time. They had one daughter who was eighteen, my cousin.
Unfortunately my favorite uncle was stricken with brain cancer and passed away within six months. I was very sad at the time but what made matters worse is my Mother decided it was best for me not to attend the funeral when he passed away. I did not even know my uncle had passed away until two months later. He is buried close by and I, with the help of my wife take care of his grave site.
During 1975, my cousin decides to move to Canada with her fiancee and my favorite aunt leaves and goes with the both of them. My family did not know what city they had moved to and unfortunately my cousin and aunt did not keep in touch with us. I was always confused about all of this growing up and even today at the age of 55 I am still confused and somewhat hurt. Why did they avoid keeping in touch with me when they knew I cared about them? My cousin married and of course I did not know her married last name so I did not know where to begin to look for them when I could research on the internet.
Recently, after tending to my uncles grave, my wife suggested trying to reach out and locate my aunt and cousin once again. I looked for obituaries online in the cities of Canada and actually located my aunt. She had passed away in 2009. I was never informed obviously and became sad hearing about her passing.
I was able to see my cousins last name after reading the obituary and decided to reach out to her. My wife thought it was a good idea too.
I wrote a hand written letter, four pages long to my cousin about how I felt about my uncle and aunt and congratulated her on having grandchildren and even enclosed pictures of my wife and i and our children.
(I gave my cousin my e-mail address, home address and my cell phone number.) I wrote this letter over a month ago and even tried to reach out to her on the linked in career site. For some unknown reason to me, my cousin has not replied to any of my messages or the hand written letter I sent to her. I even mentioned how we take care of her fathers grave but that did not even get a response. (My aunt was buried in Canada.) I am surprised, disappointed and hurt by this occurring and have a hard time dealing with it for some reason. I have to ask the obvious questions, should I just move on from trying to connect with my cousin? I know deep down I did nothing wrong but I feel she could have at least sent me a reply. I would appreciate any helpful advice you have about this issue. Thank You!

[elyn02]

Should you move on from trying to make a connection? You have tried connecting with the letter and the specific details. You should move on. The response is up to her.

[murph1982]

Thank You very much elyn02 for your suggestion. Appreciate it.

[Katnan]

How did you find her address? And who knows what has happened in her life since the obituary 10 years ago.

I would not choose to have hurt feelings at this point as there are too many unknowns.

[murph1982]

Hello Katnan,
I found out where my cousin worked by searching on the site linked in. Its a career work site with co-workers and previous employees you can search and be reconnected. I sent the letter to my cousins work and requested her on the linked in site but did not have a reply. Thank You for your message.

[thinkalot]

Which one was the blood relative? The uncle or the aunt?

Many times when a spouse dies the surviving spouse doesn't keep in contact with the family of the dead spouse. They only know those people because of their marriage to their relative. At times like this many get closer to their family, their brothers, sisters, etc.

When my dad's brother died in his early 50's we never saw his family unless we ran into them at a store or something. Though invited they never came to parties, weddings, or funerals. It's part of moving on for some people.

The part about not wanting to go to the funeral or even telling you for 2 months make me think there is some sort of history between your mother and the aunt, and your cousin knows about it.

Best to let people move on with there life.

[bale002]

Originally Posted by thinkalot

The part about not wanting to go to the funeral or even telling you for 2 months make me think there is some sort of history between your mother and the aunt, and your cousin knows about it.

Best to let people move on with their life.

Very often relatives are "long lost" for a reason.

When relatives of mine inform me that a long-lost relative contacted them out of the blue and ask me if they should respond, I usually advise them not to (see above).

I know it's hard, but let it go.

[delhidi]

Let it go. All my aunts and uncles are gone and the cousins have no desire to keep in touch. So just live your life and cherish your memories.

[Mimidae]

I'm touched by your story. I can see why you would be hurting because of this silence.

Sometimes when we reach out to someone and they don't respond, we picture the other person carelessly tossing our letter in the trash, or sneering as they delete our text*. And that makes it even more hurtful. But the truth is often: the person sets the message aside because it hit them with a lot of emotions. They intend to respond, and they know it needs a really well-thought-out response. It needs to be treated with the proper time and attention, not just done in between errands. So they set it aside and say "I'm going to write him back, just as soon as I get past this job interview / pet going into surgery / child's birthday party / etc. I'm going to make it good!"

And then what happens? Time goes on, the person periodically sees the set-aside letter and thinks to themselves how they really need to craft a good response, and it gets set aside again. After a while they start to feel guilty about not responding, so they develop a blind spot towards it and willfully forget their intention to respond, because now it's bringing about feelings they're unable to handle.

All that is to say - often people intend to respond when someone else reaches out. And sometimes it becomes too much to tackle, despite best intentions. Whether or not this is what's happening with your cousin, it might be gentler on you to picture it that way. Maybe it brought up painful memories from that time that you didn't know about and had nothing to do with. Just try not to see it as a personal rejection, if possible.

At any rate, I'm sorry this is hurting you. I'd bet any money she loved seeing pictures of your family.

*The text thing happened to me last week, though my story pales in comparison to yours. While wandering around a vacation town, half lost, I accidentally came across an establishment where I'd spent a fun birthday with friends, years ago. I texted one of those old friends about it, with a "remember when such-and-such happened??" and never got a reply. I immediately felt hurt about it, but I had to remind myself that she lives a busy life with a lot of travel herself, and who knows why she didn't respond, but there's no reason to think she and I are on bad terms now (literally our last interaction, within the past month, was her saying "I miss you!" on a social media post). So it probably it's not a personal slight.

[CatTX]

She may still respond, if it was recent just give it a bit more time. If not, respect the fact that she has moved on and do the same. I had a long-lost relative track me down via facebook years ago, when I still had an account. I really had no interest in reconnecting with her but was encouraged to respond, so I did. She was all delighted and chatty initially and we exchanged a few emails, and then she suddenly ghosted me and never replied to the last email I sent her. I was kind of surprised and re-read our communication and really didn't see anything that could have caused her to stop communicating. But she did and I do wish I had never replied to her in the first place because even though I wasn't very interested in contact, her ghosting irritated me.