Before traveling to Vancouver, I researched my uncle, Thomas Frederick Koloski, known as Tom or Freddie. Born in 1931 in New Westminster, British Columbia, he left Canada in his mid-twenties and crossed into the United States. Records show he lived in Southern California before traveling through South America, including time in Rio de Janeiro. He never married and moved often, a pattern that defined much of his adult life.

Tom was a polyglot, fluent in several languages, a gift he shared with my mother. Languages came easily to him. So did independence. He eventually returned to Canada in the early 1960s, where he spent years caring for my grandmother and maintaining the family home. Health was central to his life. He was meticulous about what he consumed and deeply committed to wellness. I met my uncle several times between 1994 and 2000, though at the time I understood little about his past or how much those encounters would later matter.

Tom died in Vancouver in 2010. A neighbor found him alone in his house. An investigation concluded he had suffered a heart attack and had likely been dead for nearly two weeks. The autopsy revealed that his stomach contained only vitamins, a detail that underscored how seriously he took his health. What stayed with me most was not the cause of death, but how long he had gone unnoticed.

When I visited Vancouver, Jean showed me the outside of the house and then quietly pointed to where Freddie had been buried, near the vegetable garden. He had been laid to rest there without a formal service or cemetery plot. The discovery was shocking. It was my cue to leave. I told Jean I would see her and my Uncle Ron later in the week.

Genealogy does more than trace lives. Sometimes it reveals how a life ends, and how little ceremony can accompany even a long and complicated journey.