My father's father passed away today in Seoul. My dad forwarded me an email from his younger brother. I didn't know my grandfather. I've seen a picture of him with my grandmother, who passed away a few years ago, holding me as a baby, but I've never had any direct contact with them.

And seeing an email from an uncle I've never met to my father - an interaction I've never witnessed before either - combined with the death of someone intimately tied to my dad, regardless of what that tie was like, made me shed a few tears. More than anything else, though, it isn't so much my grandfather's death that saddens me, as not having a relationship with these people that form my extended family.