Emily
13.
I had an uncle that committed suicide.
He and my aunt got into a big fight. They were laying in bed and he said “I’m leaving you.” Went to the garage and shot himself in the head. The whole family acts like that didnt happen and he just passed in his sleep.
14.
Was watching forensic files and discovered my aunt, who I’ve never met because of family disputes, was raped and the DNA evidence solved a murder.
Only figured it out because of our very distinct last name.
15.
My grandparents would’ve had a sixth child but my grandmother miscarried. She went into a horribly painful labor and my grandfather was terrified. He phoned the doctor, who refused to leave town to drive to their farm because he was listening to a hockey game on the radio and didn’t want to miss any of it. Grandma miscarried and it was a loud, tortured and bloody affair. My mom’s sister heard the ruckus in the living room of their tiny farmhouse and got out of bed to see what was going on. When my grandfather saw her standing at the door of the living room, he lurched across the room violently, gave her a hard smack across the face and yelled at her to go back to bed. My grandparents never mentioned the incident again. My mom and her siblings believe my grandfather buried the stillborn baby somewhere on their farm.
16.
My ex step dad was addicted to crystal meth for a long time and hid it well. He managed to keep his job as a driver for a very famous three letter delivery company. I also learned that the “gifts” people gave him on his delivery routes were most likely stolen. When i got older I started to realize people dont tip delivery drivers with 500 dollar compound bows.
17.
My mom’s sister had an affair with their 1st cousin for quite a while.
18.
My uncle tried to rape my mother (his sister, mind you) when she was six months pregnant with me. She was 19 at the time and only stopped him because she had her shotgun within reach. My grandparents defended my uncle. Later on in life, he was convicted and sent to prison for molesting several children all under the ages of 13. My family always had told me he was in prison for hunting deer out of season, but I saw through that after about age 8. No one would tell me anything until I turned 18.
19.
My grandfather killed my grandmother (while she was pregnant with my dad and his twin) by pushing her off of a hay loft. My grandfather hated his 16 children and made serious attempts to kill some of them. He regularly threatened to, “load you up in the truck, and drive you guys into the river.” He burned my dad’s hand on the stove when he was 2 years old. He also slammed my uncle’s head on the dining room table so hard that he cracked his skull. These were just a few of the things my dad told me about my grandfather. My dad doesn’t really like to talk about him much. The memories cause him a lot of pain, understandably.
20.
When my mother died, I found out my uncle is really my dad.
21.
My great grandfather was a hitman, and my whole family lives on the land he acquired with his blood money and connections.
22.
Found out my father had a secret family and that we were it – his wife and kids don’t know about us to this day. Also found out a while later that an uncle had an ex wife and kids he kept quiet about too.
23.
My uncle is only my mom’s half-brother. He’s like the third out of six and looks identical to his uncle(my nana’s brother-in-law). Ironically my nana claimed her parents were swingers and it seems the trend continued. On my dad’s side, I have an uncle who doesn’t know he’s my uncle and is a regular customer at my job. Super nice guy, talks about his mom and “dad” all the time.
24.
My great-grandparents were first cousins. They had two sons who were severely intellectually disabled, and instead of putting them in an institution – which is what everyone did at the time – my great-grandparents bought a farm out in the country and kept them home. They both died fairly young. My grandmother never mentioned any of this, I found out after she died by doing some genealogical research.
Also my maternal grandmother had a stillborn son. She told me about giving birth to him one day – I was her caregiver in the last year before she died – and how they buried him at the feet of a single woman who had died. My mother and none of her siblings knew any of this. She also had two miscarriages. So 8 pregnancies and 5 kids.
25.
Once I turned 24, I found out that my “uncle” was actually my cousin!
(I will now refer to him as my cousin for the rest of the story in attempt to avoid confusion. Even now, it’s confusing for me to even write this story).
Apparently the story goes that my aunt was raped when she was really young (13/14), got pregnant, and had my cousin. My nana decided that my aunt was too young to raise a child and raised him as if he was her own. The unspoken rule in the house was that my cousin was supposed to be treated as a brother by my mom and her siblings (whom were all 6-10 at the time).
As time went on, it just became natural for my mom and her siblings to treat my cousin as their brother and told their future children (including me) to refer to him as “Uncle (insert name here)”.
Throughout my entire childhood, I only knew him as my uncle and the interaction behind him and my aunt (his mother) seemed like a sibling one instead of a mother/son relationship.
I only found out about this when I was filling out some forms that needed a detailed family medical history. After finding this out, I asked my mom for confirmation and she then told me the whole story. Still to this day, I will always think of him as my uncle.
It’s really weird even writing this.
