Where Is He?

I have an uncle who we haven't heard from for a long time. He was estranged from the family but he unexpectedly showed up at my father's wake 8 years ago. He said that it was a coincidence that he happened to see an obituary with my dad's death. He promised to keep in touch and left an address where we could reach him. A few months later, my grandmother (his mother) passed away. My mom sent someone to locate him at the address that he had given us, but he could no longer be located. We heard rumors that he had gotten sick and passed away, but we can't confirm if this was indeed true. We don't even know where he was at that time, because apparently he had moved out of the address he gave us before we looked for him. I wish we could have an easy way of searching through death records so that we can find out for ourselves if what the rumors stated were true. I wish it were not, because he's still family and we dream of being reunited somehow.