Duality

In truth I do not feel that I can accurately state that I ever met my grandfather. He met me of course, but at two weeks old I can hardly say I was in a state to carry on a civil conversation, or to put it more realistically, to even remember him. This however does not stop the fact that I feel that I know him. Eighteen years of stories, some continuously retold, others gained during late night discussions over coffee or even the last few bites of turkey after a holiday dinner. You get to know a person, or at least, get to know what a person was. My grandfather was a father, a husband, a golfer, a waiter, a football player, a soldier. But for me, he is a mixture of stories. A key player in the events of some of my father’s childhood memories, often involving a golf course, or Marrettis, the Italian restaurant he was a waiter for, which still leaks out a story or two of him whenever we go back to my dad’s home town to visit my grandma. Or more often than not, the hero of the war stories my dad begged from his as a child. War stories that always turned out ok in the end because Grandpa didn’t want to talk about the war. But then again, who could argue with a man who turned an entire German army into coleslaw, or went AWOL to have doughnuts with his brother.

My grandfather has become something of a living legend over the years, made interesting by the fact I never knew him, and yet feel as if I know something of what made the man. I suppose it is a case of ‘you always want what you can’t have’ but then again it may be more than that. It may be that every person deserves to be remembered for what made them them, and not be allowed to sink into the miasma of those who went before them.