As I wrote in my post yesterday, this has honestly been the most painful, depressing Christmas of my life. I’ve felt especially lousy with the PTSD symptoms for days and today - now relocated up to Sally’s folks place to dog-sit while they’re traveling - has offered little improvement.
And now today I came across a story that just squeezes my already crushed heart further.
Like many who make their business on the internet I’ve long kept a Google Alert for my name, to keep an eye on if anyone references or republishes one of my stories. Like today, I felt a flash of happiness to see my Jewish News Syndicate article on the Taylor Force Act lawsuit reprinted at the Heritage Florida Jewish News. More often than not the Google Alert lets me keep an eye on a David Swindle much more prominent than myself, a famed detective over in the United Kingdom noted for catching a serial killer, and who recently started his own podcast, “Swindle’s Search for the Truth.” Pretty cool podcast name, don’t you think? Detective Swindle gets interviewed in newspapers periodically and seems like a cool guy. Hopefully my own history of internet mischief making hasn’t been too much of an annoyance if he’s got his own Google Alert set up.
But today I got an alert about another David Swindle who had not been on my radar at all. And it was an obituary:
Mr. David Mack Swindle, age 40, of Lafayette, passed away Saturday, December 24, 2022, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Funeral services are scheduled to be conducted on Friday, December 30, 2022, at 11 AM from The Chapel of Alexander Funeral Home with Brother Michael Swindle officiating.
He was two years older than me and married to a woman named Leticia Cherry Swindle. But here’s the deeper heart twister in the obituary:
He was preceded in death by his Son, Andrew Swindle.
So then I had to go and see what Andrew’s obituary said:
Andrew Will Swindle, age 15, of Lafayette, Tennessee, passed away Sunday, August 7, 2022, at his residence. Funeral services for Andrew Swindle are scheduled to be conducted on Thursday, August 11, 2022, at 1 PM, from The Chapel of Alexander Funeral Home with Brother Michael Swindle officiating. Interment will follow in The Haysville Cemetery.
Here’s the photograph of Andrew:
So a Tennessee man’s 15-year-old son dies in August of this year. And then less than six months later, on Christmas Eve, he dies too.
I’ve done a bit of googling on both David and Andrew but have so far found no media coverage of either death or any explanation of the causes. The closest I’ve come is finding his widow Leticia’s Facebook page but it and the connected pages of other family members did not offer any clues as to what all happened.
I’m resisting the urge to speculate how they died. A part of me almost doesn’t even want to know as, of course, it’s my tendency these days to simply fear for the worst.
This isn’t the first time I’ve come across someone with my name who died young. In 2012 this obituary came to my attention:
David Michael Swindle, age 34, a native and resident of Mobile, died Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 in a Mississippi hospital. He is survived by his wife, Latasha Swindle; one son, Logan Swindle; his mother, Sandra (Kent) Campbell; his father, Michael Swindle; aunts, uncles, and other relatives and friends.
That one struck a bit more personally as he and I share the same middle name too. I also don’t know how he died.
Now, am I likely related to these two Davids? I have no genealogical evidence yet but I’m inclined to suspect that we are. My great-great-grandfather was named John Sylvester Swindle, born in 1825 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He had 11 siblings. John Sylvester - known by the nickname “Baldy John” - apparently had TWENTY-SEVEN children according to the genealogical data I’ve stumbled across online. My great-grandfather, Joseph Oxley Swindle, who moved his branch of the family to West Texas, had 12 children, the very youngest being my grandfather. So whenever I bump into some story, news item, or random google search featuring a Swindle based in the South or Texas, I just assume that they’re probably a distant cousin and we likely share a common ancestor going back to the 1800s.
But I can’t really know at this point. Beyond my grandparents most of my family history on both sides seems to largely be lost or hidden. I don’t know why Joseph Oxley decided to leave the South and resettle in Texas. I only have vague hints and hazy childhood memories of why my grandfather left Texas and why our branch of the family never seemed to stay all that connected with those who remained in Texas and the South. I suspect it has something to do with an abusive childhood. I seem to recall Grandpa describing Texas as a place to “escape” and him being proud of being the only one in the family to have done so, relocating to California after World War II, where my father and uncle would be born in the 1950s.
So many family mysteries - and I the professional journalist and researcher am so drawn to start digging and finding out what all happened and why.
But perhaps some mysteries we’d rather just not discover the truth. Let the dead stay buried. Ecclesiastes 1:18 comes to mind:
“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
Sleep well David and Andrew. Our paths did not cross in this world but I suspect they will in the next.