Glenn

When I was growing up, Glenn and Mary and their kids, Leslie and Jeffrey, were part of many of our family gatherings. Glenn was my Uncle Ollie’s son—technically my mom’s cousin—but to me, he was simply family. They were the closest thing I had to cousins on that side, and they were regular fixtures in my childhood. We saw them at birthdays and those casual weekend visits that always seemed to end up at my grandmother’s house. They were part of the routine of family life—familiar, comfortable, always around.

My grandmother and Uncle Ollie lived together, and Glenn was a regular visitor at the house on Dover Place. Glenn’s mother had passed away when he was very young, and my grandmother helped raise him. In many ways, she filled that role of mother in his life, giving him stability and love when he needed it most.

Then Uncle Ollie died in 1970, and something shifted. Almost overnight, Glenn and his family just stopped showing up. They didn’t come to family functions, didn’t visit Grandma’s house anymore, didn’t call. It wasn’t gradual—it was sudden. They were gone.

At first, I waited for them to come back, thinking maybe it was just a rough patch or a busy time. But they never did. Years went by, and they simply disappeared from our lives. No explanation. No falling out that anyone ever spoke of. Just silence.

As a kid, that was hard to understand. I couldn’t wrap my head around how people who had been so close could just vanish like that. It felt like something had broken, but nobody wanted to talk about it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see that families are complicated. People hold grudges, feel slighted, get tired, or drift into their own worlds. But even understanding that doesn’t make it easier.

When my grandmother died in December of 1980, Glenn was the only one who showed up. Not Mary, not Leslie, not Jeffrey. Just Glenn—standing there quietly, saying very little. It was painful to watch, because this was the woman who had raised him after his mother died. She had loved him like her own son. And there he was, unable—or unwilling—to find the words.

That moment stuck with me. It said something about the way people can disconnect, even from those who once gave them everything. It also taught me something I didn’t realize at the time: family isn’t guaranteed. Just because you share blood doesn’t mean you share loyalty, or love, or the desire to stay connected.

I’ve carried some anger about that through the years. Maybe it’s because I can’t stand to see someone turn their back on the people who stood by them. Like my Grandma Wollberg being there for him and he turned his back on her. She deserved more. She deserved better. It left a mark.

When I think about it now, Glenn and Mary are both gone. Their children, Leslie and Jeffrey, have long since gone their own ways, far removed from the family gatherings we once shared. Time has a way of carrying people off quietly, leaving behind only the memories of who they were and how things once felt.

Sometimes, even family can disappoint you in ways that never quite fade. And maybe that’s why I still think about them. Because even when people disappear from your life, the memories don’t.

And maybe that’s part of what shapes us as human beings—the absences as much as the presence. The people who walk away remind us to hold tighter to the ones who stay.