Relative poisoned my relationship with my aunt
I'll keep this as short as possible. Over a year ago, my father died. His estate has yet to be resolved. No one in the family knows what is going on. At some point, he handed over his affairs to an in-law. When that happened, my father kept me in the dark as to what was going on in his life. In his last few years, he never called me, despite my constant attempts to reach him. Looking back, I now think that the in-law played a big role in all of this. The in-law was in frequent touch with my aunt. After my father passed, I tried to reach my aunt and left a message. She never called back which is unheard of. I tried again a few weeks later, still no response. I even sent a cousin a message asking if all was well---no response.
My feeling is that the in-law said something to poison the relationship. Whatever happened with my father's estate, I knew nothing about it and had no control over what happened.
The thing is that I'm very sad to not hear from my aunt. She and my uncle were bright spots in my life when I was a teen. I grew up in dysfunction with an alcoholic mother who was verbally and emotionally abusive to us kids. My father was the perfect enabler who threw us kids under the bus so that she would scream at us instead of him. When I had a chance to visit with my aunt, uncle and cousins it was a wonderful experience. I got to see what it was like to see what a functioning family was like. So...to have my aunt not want to talk to me, truly hurts. She is getting up in years and the thought of not being able to talk to her again, is very sad.
Thus, I'm looking for advice. Here is what I'm thinking of doing. Please let me know what you think:
I would call her and when I get her voicemail say something along the lines of this "Hi Aunt. I've left you messages and haven't heard back. Is everything alright? I'm puzzled as to why you haven't called. If you have any questions for me, I will gladly answer them. I look forward to hearing from you. You mean a lot to me."
Any thoughts?
Thank you.
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