My Sons,
I have a memory that no one else has. I am two and a half, slumped exhausted over my Pepere's shoulders. I am sipping orange juice from a blue cup. We are in a room I don't know or understand. That's all; that's my first memory of this life. The room is in a hospital. My mother is in surgery, perilously close to slipping away from us. A despondent woman decided to end her life in a car wreck. We were parked in front of an ice cream parlor when she found us. My Mom threw herself across me when she saw it coming. I was fine. My Dad got thrown around but my Mom took the brunt of it. I feel fortunate that all I recall are the strong arms of my Pepere, holding me tight, strong against the fear.
I thought a lot about that memory when I lifted my Pepere, my father's father, your Great-Grandfather, to deliver him back to the earth. He died a week ago, riven by cancer, but strong and clear to the last. He died with his family close, sad to leave them, but ready to meet God.
Pepere understood the world through words. He told stories and wrote essays. Our last engaged conversation was a discourse on a novel his father, Alberic Amedee, wrote in the 1940's. Pepere was my strongest connection to my songline, of how we came to be these people in this place. I wanted to take his memory essays and make a book of them but we ran out of time. Perhaps I still will, so that there's another link in your chain. I would like you to hear his stories in his words, so you can add to them and make them your stories.
I miss him terribly.
Pa-
15 July 2001, at a brunch the day after your Mom and I were married