Grandpa

My grandpa, who was so blessed to have lived 91 years, passed away on Friday morning. He passed peacefully, having lived a full life surrounded by people who loved him.

His mind slowly crept into  shadow over the past decade; a dementia which ironically, brought him back to a child's mind in the early stages. It wasn't sudden, but we caught faltering glimpses of a silliness etching his personality. Maybe it was a sloppily hidden half eaten bag of Oreos beneath his chair, or a simple joke he'd share; at first we weren't sure, but by the end, we knew. Grandpa was not grandpa, really. 

In the end, he had forgotten who I was; though I think he knew he was supposed to know me, it was there in his eyes. Though my name he hadn't uttered in a decade, those same eyes that had read me Little Bear books as a child, that penciled thousands of crossword puzzle answered into the weekly paper, those eyes told me what his mouth couldn't, that he knew, and that he was sorry.

He was born in 1919 and died 2010. He lived through Prohibition and the Great Depression. Women couldn't vote when he was born, the advancement of cars and technology; Civil Rights, JFK's assassination, several wars, Nixon's scandal, the technological advancements alone wouldn't have been believed if he could have foreseen. The history in his lifetime, the advancements, the sacrifice, the tragedy and the victory. Incredible. a life worth living!

While fighting in WWII, just a young man himself, he was captured by the German's while hunkered down in a stone house in Belgium. It was December of 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge and he was lined up then was marched for miles to be forced in to train cars with hundreds of other prisoners, smashed together until he and many others suffered frost bite and more. He was kept in a German Prisoner of War camp in occupied Poland, and though it's hard to imagine the awful things he must have gone through during that time, he survived and came home to start his family Lottie, his most cherished wife, and my grandmother.

The years he served and fought are something that he rarely spoke of, but as his mind slipped,  he spoke of it often. Perhaps those wartime memories, too painful or bothersome to recall burst forth as his kinder memories slipped away. Like the broken lock of a Hope Chest springing open after years in a dusty attic.

He sometimes spoke of the terrible things he'd seen during the war, but sometimes he'd talk of his comrades and friends. "They called me Curly," he'd often say, "because of my curly hair."  I know that that war changed his life in ways few can understand, I suppose that is something only others who experience similar atrocities can fully grasp.

The last time I saw Grandpa was just a few months ago. The entire family was over at the house for a visit. Grandpa was feeling pretty spry, because he was walking about, saluting (something he has always done) and engaging with jokes and stiff jabs to an unsuspecting belly or two; a bit of the joker he was once known to be come forth once more. I found myself alone with grandpa toward the end of my visit. We were standing by a window looking out at two flags, wound up the ages old steel flag pole in grandpa's front yard. They were flapping gently in a late Autumn breeze, an American flag and below it, an Army flag. 

"See that," he said to me "that's an Army flag," he said. "Yes, grandpa. I know, because you were in the Army, right?" I replied.

"I was?" he asked me.

"Yes, grandpa. You fought in a war, and you're a hero." I told him. His eyes lit up, "Yes, I did fight in the war." he said "I'm a hero and that's my flag.

"Yes, you are." I agreed.

We sat there for a while watching the flags. Then quietly, he turned to me, saluted and marched off to join the rest of the family.