Moral Obligation?

I received a phone call this morning from someone other than my ex's family telling me that my ex-father in-law passed away.  I debated on what to do, as I was married to my ex for 11 years.  This man was my three older children's Grandparent.  But you would not have known it.  Half the time he could not even remember their names.  As far as I am concerned for me, personally, I have washed my hands of the whole family and do not feel any obligations to be there for myself.  But for the kids, I really wasn't sure how they would take it.  I didn't know what to say or how to say it because I wasn't really sure of how their reaction would be.  It's not like when my own Father passed away the kids were close to him and it was tough.  I gave the family a benefit of the doubt and waited for them to call but no one ever did, not even their own Dad, surprised huh? So I finally broke the news to them.  Their reaction was "really? Oh."  I thought, gosh that was so easy.

It just saddens me that someone who should be an important person in their life just wasted his life here on earth.  He literally drank himself to death.  I don't know what state he was in at his time of death, but if it preceded the kind of life that he had always lived, it wasn't good.