I realized the other day that I have no pictures of him.
Memorial Day is not a day where I feel like doing much celebrating, even though lots of people have barbeques and go swimming at the lake. This day is a little sadder for me every year now that my grandads are gone.
In particular, I think about my Papa, my mom's dad, because sometimes it feels like he's still watching over me - too far away for a picture, but too close for a postcard. He had that kind of charisma. He cared for the people in his life so deeply that he put them above everything else - and that man loved his Atari and his pool table.
Over the course of a long and now defunct relationship with a man in college, I began to notice certain belongings of mine disappearing. These were not little things to me: family letters, personal diaries, pictures and finally one day my Papa's dog tag from his service in the Air Force during WWII. I had treasured those things not only because they were deeply personal but because some of those people I would never see nor speak to again. The guilt at losing them only magnified as time went on and then exploded exponentially once I learned that the man I was seeing was responsible for their disappearance. They were mine to care for and I had let someone into my life whom I ultimately could not trust.
I grieved over the loss of that dog tag. Yes, it was a small thing, but it was all I had of his. And it would never come back. I moved my whole life in a different direction after that. I was much more careful who I let in and how much of the real me I let them see. Shortly after that, I moved into my own place and started buying my own things and making a new life.
I found a chair at a local antique store that was absolutely dreadful, but it had "great bones". I could work with my hands again. My Papa loved working with his hands. He built all manner of things, wide-ranging, from making sets of wooden card holders with leftover Parcheesi pegs denoting each hand of a 15 hand rummy game, to digging out and building his own basement under the house that he and Granny shared for almost 40 years. Refinishing this little chair would be my way of remembering him instead.
It took several evenings to cooerce the fabric and dirt and musty stuffing out that chair. As I was working on the seat cushion one evening, I had my arm halfway into the seat, pulling staples out with some curved pliers when I tapped something that was much larger than a staple. I let go of the pliers and cramped up my hand to grab a thin, flat, metal something. I pulled it out. It was a dog tag. Not a real dog tag, but exactly the same size, color and shape as one. It also had letters punched backwards through the metal, so I turned it over. It was one word: Forgiven.
In particular, I think about my Papa, my mom's dad, because sometimes it feels like he's still watching over me - too far away for a picture, but too close for a postcard. He had that kind of charisma. He cared for the people in his life so deeply that he put them above everything else - and that man loved his Atari and his pool table.
Over the course of a long and now defunct relationship with a man in college, I began to notice certain belongings of mine disappearing. These were not little things to me: family letters, personal diaries, pictures and finally one day my Papa's dog tag from his service in the Air Force during WWII. I had treasured those things not only because they were deeply personal but because some of those people I would never see nor speak to again. The guilt at losing them only magnified as time went on and then exploded exponentially once I learned that the man I was seeing was responsible for their disappearance. They were mine to care for and I had let someone into my life whom I ultimately could not trust.
I grieved over the loss of that dog tag. Yes, it was a small thing, but it was all I had of his. And it would never come back. I moved my whole life in a different direction after that. I was much more careful who I let in and how much of the real me I let them see. Shortly after that, I moved into my own place and started buying my own things and making a new life.
I found a chair at a local antique store that was absolutely dreadful, but it had "great bones". I could work with my hands again. My Papa loved working with his hands. He built all manner of things, wide-ranging, from making sets of wooden card holders with leftover Parcheesi pegs denoting each hand of a 15 hand rummy game, to digging out and building his own basement under the house that he and Granny shared for almost 40 years. Refinishing this little chair would be my way of remembering him instead.
It took several evenings to cooerce the fabric and dirt and musty stuffing out that chair. As I was working on the seat cushion one evening, I had my arm halfway into the seat, pulling staples out with some curved pliers when I tapped something that was much larger than a staple. I let go of the pliers and cramped up my hand to grab a thin, flat, metal something. I pulled it out. It was a dog tag. Not a real dog tag, but exactly the same size, color and shape as one. It also had letters punched backwards through the metal, so I turned it over. It was one word: Forgiven.