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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. — An Arlington Heights lost his father suddenly last year. Now, his father’s remains are missing as well.
Daniel McGuire grew up in Arlington Heights.
“He was a big guy, 6’5. Everyone called him ‘Big Mac,’” his son Colin McGuire said. “My dad was a best friend to me and he was a really good friend to a lot of my friends. I had the house everyone wanted to hang out at.”
It was heart-related issues that took Daniel McGuire’s life.
“His brother and brother’s wife found him face down and he had unexpectedly passed away,” Colin McGuire said. “It was the shock of a lifetime.”
With Covid still an issue, the family just had a small memorial for him in May of 2021.
Colin McGuire took his dad’s cremated remains back with him to California and after losing his grandmother last year as well, decided to have a joint funeral for both of them last week in Arlington Heights.
Colin McGuire said the funeral home advised him to mail his father’s remains with the postal service.
“I needed to ship him to Gleukert Funeral home in Arlington Heights so they could transfer his remains to a burial grade urn,” Colin McGuire said.
He did that through the United States Postal Service on May 11. They never arrived in Illinois and no one knows where they are.
“We called the funeral home on the 15th. They hadn’t received anything. (We) called the U.S. Postal Service Consumer Affairs (and) that’s when they said, ‘We don’t have any scans whatsoever. We don’t know where the package is.’”
Colin McGuire said he’s filed all the tickets and asked all the questions but is getting no answers. He said the funeral service will have to go ahead, without one of the people it was supposed to be for.
“It’s another traumatic experience,” Colin McGuire said.
And while he’s not giving up hope that his dad’s remains will be found, he’s frustrated it’s taking this long, to bring him home.
“Everyone is at the cemetery and we’ve got a spot for him and we just want to lay him to rest,” he said. “It’s the most important thing right now/ It’s the most important thing to a lot of people in my family.”