Thank you Mark and Anita for your replies.

Yes it does sound crazy to think I would want contact with someone so toxic. I don’t really think I do. When I logically think about it, I remember when I was a child, my uncle was a “cool” guy, someone I genuinely looked up to, and who was good to me. I remember he used to tape cartoons for me and showed me the classic scary old movies (Frankenstein, Dracula, etc). I’m an artist and he would draw with me.

I don’t know what happened that turned his heart so cold but it isn’t even just towards me and my mom, he’s now openly racist and homophobic and is just not a nice person in general. God knows how his wife and kids deal with him.

I think I miss what he used to be and get very sad thinking about how that person is gone. It’s like grieving over another death in a way. The person he was when my grandparents were alive is gone. And what has happened since can’t be undone and I can’t ever look at him the same. Even in recent times when there were brief moments of “peace”, I felt disgusted looking at him and hurt because of what he’s said and done.

My sense of justice is unfulfilled because I never got any apology or acknowledgement for all of the years of pain he has put pretty much my whole family through but especially my mother and I. So I guess it feels like there is no closure. That seems to be what I’m missing more than an actual relationship with him. How do you get closure when you can’t talk to the person anymore?

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