Another one that isn’t really a state secret but isn’t freely shared.
When I was a child my mom told me that my father had died in an automobile accident while I was still an infant. The explanation was understandably brief, as one doesn’t necessarily want to burden a five-year-old with too many details.
As the years went on my mom occasionally shared little additional bits and pieces of what happened. By the time I was a teenager, I had learned that they had already began divorce proceedings, and they had been fighting on the day he died.
Later on she mentioned that she wasn’t in the accident–they were already separated and he had stormed out during the fight and gotten in an accident, understandable if one is in an altered state of mind. And finally, well into my forties, she mentioned that he had been drinking that night.
But then some time later I was talking with her on the phone when the subject came up and she casually mentioned something that freaked me out: “And then there was that family he killed in the station wagen.”
?!?What?!?
I did my best to not let her notice my shock, but once we were off the phone I began furious research. I immediately began signing up for free trial accounts on websites like Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com and searched using the official stats from his death certificate as a starting point. After a couple of days I found it: several articles from regional papers telling of a nighttime tragedy.
It seems that after the fight he left the house in a drunken rage heading back to his place. He struck a car driven by a single college-aged girl, killing her. The girl’s car then struck a third car that had a young family of four in it, killing the young mother in the passenger seat.
So, yes, my father was that asshole who gets drunk and kills people on the road, except he didn’t survive either. Three people died that night.
I never did find any details about the first girl other than where she was born. I was able to find details about the young mother though. I eventually found articles from the early 1970s showing both daughters involved in various school sports, so I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that at least the daughters survived. It occured to me that I could try to find them, to apologize on behalf of my father, but I can’t think of a single reason why this would be a good thing and all kinds of reasons why this would be a bad thing.
I eventually found a photo of the mother’s grave marker on a website where volunteers photograph grave markers and register them for loved ones to be able to find.
When I eventually asked my mom about it, she filled in a few details, but she has forgotten much. It is not difficult for me to understand how my father’s family completely cut off relations with my mom though, regardless of who was to blame–there was plenty of bad news and strong emotions going around at that moment several decades ago.
And it is understandable that I don’t allow alcohol in my own home. Not a drop. Whether my daughter drinks or not is her own business, but not in my home.