One Small Box

I don't know exactly what I expected to find when I started chasing after my great grandfather, but it wasn't this.

Okay, that's not quite true - I did expect a few things. Fairly unrealistic things, now that I think about it. I was caught up in what I thought was a bit of a mystery - and mysteries always get my imagination going. I had started with one piece of information: the name of the facility where my great-grandpa George died

I was hot on the trail.

As it happened, there is a facility with that name right where I live (what luck). All the documentation I needed practically fell into my lap. All I needed to do was write a letter and ask them to send me everything they had on my great grandfather. This was going to be a fairly straightforward case.

So be it. If the hunt was to be easy - there was still the anticipation of what I would discover - what they would send me.

Here's how I pictured it:

I would wait a few days, then weeks, and then about the time I'd forgotten about ever making the request, it would arrive.

In my imagination, it would be a small, well-worn box. It would have a few dusty photographs of people I'd never met, maybe a book or two written in Russian, and (best of all) official documentation of my great-grandfather's confinement. There would be a certain amount of finality to it, but with enough leads to take me to new mysteries - if I was interested.

That's what I expected, but then - Hollywood has really done a number on my generation.

What I did get was a letter. In it was the request and supporting documentation I'd sent them - they were sending it back. They'd attached a cover sheet with four lines of text on it. Each line was next to a check box.

One of these boxes was checked. It said:

Our files have been carefully checked and we are unable to determine that the patient was ever seen at [our facility]

So much for imagination, so much for easy.

So much for round one. Round two is in the mail, and I've queued up round three. Mysteries be damned, I just hate to lose.

I'm still on the trail.

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