What was life like for Thomas Ross Wingate's children after their father died on them? Did they know at the time that two of them—my father and his brother Eddie—would replicate the feat and leave their own young children in the lurch?

I'm not even sure who's in this photo, though I suspect that the tall figure of my teenaged father fills the doorway on the left. There are sons children than there were in my grandfather's immediate family, so people from outside of it must be included. 

If it is my father in the doorway, I wonder how close he is to the trouble that would land him in jail. I can't even guess how old he was in the photo, because people looked so much older back then. So weighed down by cares, certain only that they will have to work their asses off to scrape by. 

When tragedy strikes and parents die, people tend to leave their families because their families have begun the process of dissolution and already left them. I look into the eyes of the the young man in the doorway and recognize their look from my own childhood. 

As if the world has spoken, made its pronouncement: Good luck, kid. You're on your own. This is what loss does to the remaining.