My Old Man's Old Man

December 18, 1924.  The oldest of seven children was born into the world, pushed out of his mother's womb, into a era of glimmer and shine and prosperity.  It was the mid-point of the well-known "roaring twenties," but chances are, les années folles probably didn't touch his family much in New Roads, Louisiana, a small town along the False River north of Baton Rouge.  There, his father ran the local general store.

By the time he was five, the stock market had crashed, and the Great Depression set in.  By the time he was nine, war was happening across the Atlantic.  He graduated high school as valedictorian and went to LSU at the age of 16.  Two years later, he joined the Army and ended up in the Ardennes, fighting German soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge, a month-long contest that began two days before his twentieth birthday.

My grandfather loved history, and he loved reading books about the war, but he never talked about his own experiences to me much.  I guess there are some things that a person simply cannot bear to recall.  I will likely never understand how he felt or what he went through.  I have not seen my friends killed before my eyes.  I have not suffered through a cold and terrible winter, fighting for my life and the lives of people I had never met, just a month out of my teenage years.  I have never shot a man.

He returned three years later to take business and law classes, graduating LSU with a law degree, only to take over the family business and run it well into his later years.

He married my grandmother--probably the smartest choice he ever made in a life of smart choices--and they had seven children.  My dad was the youngest son, also a lawyer, also a scholar, also a good and kind man.

December 18, 1985.  On the day he turned 61, a granddaughter was born into the family.  She was named after his wife.  She was the oldest daughter of his youngest son.  And she was absolutely enamored with him from the start.  He was kind and funny and caring and made terrible jokes (where her father undoubtedly got it from).  When she went to camp, he would write her letters, and inside of the envelope, without fail, would always be a stick or two of gum.  Her grandmother always wrote a few lines, but he was the writer, the conversationalist.  He was the storyteller.  Every Sunday night, he would call her father to talk, and if she picked up instead, he would ask her about her life, her school work, her writing.  In ninth grade, she wrote a terrible poem and got it published in an anthology of other unwanted poems by people willing to pay for printing, and she gave him a copy.  He kept it in his bookshelf-lined living room for years, on the bottom shelf where everyone could see it.  In college, he would send her cards.  When she traveled abroad, he would tell her about the places he'd been, about the time he was in France for the war.  Never any details; just that he'd been there, too.

They didn't talk on the phone much, but every 18th of December, she would call him.  Every year.  Without fail.
[ring ring]
Papa: Hello?
Her: Hi, Papa!  Happy birthday!
Papa: Well, happy birthday to you!

They would both laugh, and she'd undoubtedly see him that weekend for a shared celebration of some sort: a dinner, most often.  Sharing a birthday with him was always an honor, even when it meant that no one else remembered her birthday, overshadowed as it was by the celebration of another year in his long and happy life.  The thing is, he never forgot about it.  They always called each other.  It was an unspoken agreement between them, a granddaughter and her beloved Papa.

December 18, 2013.  He'd begun to have trouble with his memory, and when she called, his wife had to remind him about the shared birthday.  December 18, 2014.  She called, and he didn't seem to recognize who she was.  It seemed to be just another birthday call from someone he couldn't quite place.   He'd been called and wished happy birthday all day long.  Why should this call be any different?

I cried that day, as I hung up the phone.  On my birthday--our birthday--my favorite day of the year.  Phone still in hand, I mourned the loss of my grandfather as I had known him: his jokes and smiles, his curiosity, his endless knowledge, and the unique bond we had between us.  That day, I realized that I would probably never get to make that phone call again.

But I will celebrate his life every December 18th as I celebrate mine, loving that day as I know he did.  And in each day of my life, I will strive to be as endlessly knowledgeable, as loving, and as strong as he was.  I will try to be everything he knew I could be, and everything that he knows that I am.  I will replay all the best memories: the way he'd unbuckle his belt and shake his pants off (and Gran's response: "Oh, B!"),  the time he showed me a real and large rabbit hopping away from the house on Easter morning, LSU games in the stands, sitting in the massage chairs at his store, making fires in the fireplace on Christmas, trips to the beach in the summer.

It has been a sad day today, full of tears and nose running and averted eyes, but he would have been glad to know that I laughed.  And taught.  And wrote.  And played.  He'd be proud to know that I was strong, and prouder still to know that I was doing all the things he once loved to do.

I miss you, Papa.  I'll see you on the other side.