It is always interesting how additional pieces of information can serve to transform a particular picture.
This transformed picture concerns the cousin - referred to in my previous post, above - who is marooned in the US, unable to attend his mother's funeral.
Anyway, earlier today, I had spoken with the husband of one of his two sisters.
Tonight, I spoke with his other sister, a gay feminist, who is raising her son with her partner, (in Brighton, in the UK), who explained with no small degree of exasperation that her brother, his American wife, and their family are all "Trumpets", - this was a detail I had not known - had voted for that individual in 2016 and would do so again were his name to appear on a ballot, and hold peculiar views on vaccination,- the sort of peculiar views on vaccination that mean that when one does indeed contract Covid, as my cousin did, one gets the sort of serious dose that - in this instance - gave rise to double pneumonia, and, in the case of this particular cousin, seems to have also triggered what may well have been underlying cardiac problems. And considerable medical expenses, needless to say.
So, the tale of his non-attendence at - and inability to attend - his mother's funeral is a little more complex than I had been given to understand. I confess that my sympathy (substantial) earlier in the day, has, to a considerable extent, since then, largely evaporated.
Moreover, that cousin's entire family hold (tenaciously) these peculiar views on vaccination, and it appears that the demise of the recently deceased father-in-law, (whose funeral occurred last week) might have been brought about as a consequence of such tenaciously held views.
