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11/12/2007
Boomerang
"The old clock is running down. It may be quite a while before it completely stops; however, I thought it was a good time to tell you about being the 'Big Hero' of World War Two."That is how my grandfather's letter begins. It was written a couple of years ago, and came accompanied by a fat photocopied packet containing the history of his USAAF squadron.
The official record is difficult for me to follow. I'm not familiar with the history of the war in the Pacific, and there are altogether too many dutiful notations of who was transferred where and when for me to do more than skim it, looking for mentions of my grandfather's name. But there are plenty of those, as he served with some distinction.
What is infinitely more absorbing is the letter, my grandfather's personal history of his service. While the official record offers descriptions like this:
7 December 1941. The personnel of the 72nd Bomb Sqdn were rather rudely awakened this Sunday morning by the sound of Jap Bombs exploding in Pearl Harbor setting off the greatest war in the history of man.
...my grandfather's is more down to earth: "P. and I had made plans to be married in January 1942 in Honolulu and had purchased a ticket on the Matson line. After December 7, the ticket was refunded and we did lots of letter-writing for the next year and a half."
His letter is sprinkled with precise details like that, the name of the cruise line he'd booked for my grandmother, the name of the jeweler who'd sold him her engagement ring, the builder of their first house, remembered some sixty years later. As sharp as his memory was his wit, sly and understated. "It seems," he wrote of the search mission he called his most memorable, "that the brass had managed to lose track of the Japanese navy fleet."
He found it, all two carriers, two battleships, six cruisers, and eleven destroyers of it, but says no more of the award he subsequently received than, "I received a telegram message from the South Pacific Commander that read, 'Extremely well done, 5 Vector 40.'" This understatement was utterly in character. For as long as I've known him, he hasn't talked casually about his service, not ever, and always discouraged questions about it; when the local paper wanted his thoughts on the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, he politely reminded him that he'd talked to them ten years earlier, gave them permission to reprint that earlier interview, and bid the reporter good day.
This characteristic reticence made it surprising when I got the packet he'd sent. I knew he had served, but hadn't known the details. Didn't know he'd been decorated — "Everybody that was hospitalized got a Purple Heart, but I just had sunburn, and received the Silver Star" — or that he'd been promoted and subsequently deployed to Italy as a squadron commander — "I did get an R&R to Rome, but missed seeing the Vatican as the lines were too long. The Pope's loss."
"Daddy's lost his mind," my aunt whispered when I called last month. I laughed, thinking she was joking, that she meant that he'd finally been driven around the figurative bend by the outrageous behavior of my two young cousins, who live at my grandparents' house. But she was serious. From experiencing brief periods of confusion or forgetfulness, the kind of benign lapses one associates with advanced age, my grandfather had abruptly entered dementia. Paranoia. Loss of memory. Hallucinations.
This has been a hard year for our family. My aunt continues to convalesce at my grandparents' house, waiting to heal enough for further surgery'. My uncle has returned there as well, leaving a failing marriage, moving in with two turbulent teenage girls. There was my father's death, of course. And this. A big man, towering in body and spirit, reduced. All-night agitation. Imaginary spiders. Telling his granddaughter to call the police. Sure that he sees a little girl sitting in the corner.
And, "Where is my wife?" "T., I am your wife."
My grandmother. Oh, my grandmother, who at 88 seems to be holding all our despair at bay with little more than determination and a stubborn refusal to abandon her habitual cheerfulness. She who once summed up her philosophy by declaring, "I don't like unpleasant things," is awash in them. Yet somehow she is the one who seems most together. When I talk to my aunt, she confesses that she's had her Paxil dose doubled. When I talk to my mother, she falls back on long, detailed accounts of visiting my grandfather at the nursing home, as if clinical detachment could shield us from the sadness of it all. When I talk to my grandmother, though, she is matter-of-fact — rueful but composed. Aware, from her own experience with her mother's decline, that the husband she knew and loved is irretrievably gone. But bearing up, because that is what we do. And doing so with grace and humor, because that is what she does.
"Julie," she says to me on the phone, "you know I'm a bourbon woman. But we ran out, so I started on the gin. Well, I don't like plain gin, so I was mixing it with Diet Coke. Then we ran out of that, so I tried it with Gatorade. But now we're out of Gatorade."
"So are you going to get more tonic?" I ask, her most devoted straight man.
"Oh, no, indeed. Tonight I'll start on Ensure."
My mother has lost both her husband and her father in the span of a couple of months. I can't say more about that without putting my head down on the desk and sobbing for her, and us all.
And so back to Pearl Harbor, Midway, Guadalcanal. My grandfather, in one of his intermittent moments of lucidity, asks my grandmother to look in "the hero drawer" to get his medals. She takes them to him at the nursing home, where he looks at them, fingers his Air Medal, nods in satisfaction, and then asks that they be given to his oldest three great-grandsons, my nephews. Before the request is fully out of his mouth, though, he's looking out the window with the confused expression my grandmother has come to recognize — not there, somewhere else, gone. She's not unduly concerned. He'll come back again, she knows, at least briefly, at least for now.
The name of his plane was Boomerang, "because it always came back, you see." On the front of the squadron's history is a blurry copy of a photo, my grandfather and his crew. They are smiling, handsome, young.
I never knew my grandfather to be a demonstrative man, but in the photo his arms are draped around his crew members' shoulders. The end of his letter surprises me even more: "I think every day how lucky I am to have been married 61 years to the most wonderful person in the world and how lucky our children are to have her for a mother. I have been blessed with loving children and grandchildren unto the fourth generation. I am so proud of all of you."
The old clock is running down. Extremely well done, 5 Vector 40. It was the Pope's loss, indeed.
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What a beautiful tribute Julie - to both your grandfather and your grandmother. Your whole family is in my thoughts.
Very nice. Thanks so much for sharing.
Beautiful.
but no fair making me cry into my soup during my lunch break.
I couldn't get through this without putting my head down and sobbing for you all either. My thoughts are with you.
This brought back vivid memories of my own grandfather, also a WW2 vet who rarely spoke of his service. I remember the day, 10 or so years ago, when he gave me a Heart Shield Bible. It was a small, pocket sized bible with a metal plate for the cover. The idea was to put the bible in your left breast pocket to protect your heart from gunfire. Inside was a note stating that his mother had given him the bible in 1920 something (I don't have it in front of me) and that he took it to Iceland, England, etc. and finally brought it back home. He wrote that it kept him safe through those years. The moment he gave me that bible I was reduced to a babbling, crying, grateful grandaughter. I was always his girl and his death, even 6 years later, still breaks my heart daily. All of this to say, I know what it means to love a grandfather with all of your heart and to be so proud of his accomplishments.
Julie, I imagine this has been addressed, but just in case it hasn't been, I'll continue. My 84 y.o. father (also a WWII vet) gets very loopy if he has an infection of any kind. Also, certain meds can make him talk as though he is a teen on the street he grew up on, talking to his then next door neighbor, or see imaginary spiders on the wall, and agitated. I've seen both these things happen several times and each time I wonder if he has slipped into dementia--it sounds like just what you are describing. It might be worth some questions to his caregivers at his nursing home re urinalysis and medication changes.
That said, beautiful post. I agree, your family has been through so much this year. Enough already. I'm so sorry.
Extremely well done, Julie. It is clear that he was as proud of you as you clearly are of him.
Bless all of you, and peace be with you.
Julie - I'm so truly sorry for you and your family. It's so tough to go through times like these. Several years ago, my mother lost her own mother, her father figure (her own having died when she was young) and her best friend suddenly, all in 6 months. It was rough watching her grieve so much (we started calling her Morticia because she became so death-obsessed. Don't mean to make light of it but we needed to laugh a little at the time). Your grandfather sounds like an admirable man.
And good luck with the upcoming cycle - you could use some good news, eh?!
That brought me to tears. What an awesome set of grandparents you have. How lucky.
Ah, Julie. Thinking of you, and your family.
That was one of the most beautiful tributes I've ever read. Thank you so much for sharing him with us.
I'd like to second Lisa's comment... a friend of mine's dad seemed to have entered dementia, but returned to a normal state when they took him off all meds and located the one that his system was reacting to. Sometimes these things that come on suddenly are transient reactions to over medication. Just a thought and probably one you've already covered, but I well remember my friend's anguish at her dad's condition and joy when he returned to more normal functioning.
Beautiful.
And I will add to the chorus of infections causing odd problems-my friends mom was thought to have lept into Alzheimers-once her UTI was located and treated, she was back to her 85 year old self.
And my own grandmother underwent a supervised withdrawal of alkl meds and then restarted them carefully, and the dementia disappeared.
Oh, Julie. This is lovely, and so sad. My grandmother lost three out of her four children and two of their spouses, two grandchildren, and her much-loved husband of sixty-four years before her own death at age 93, and she sounds so much like your grandmother that your telling of this has made me miss her all over again. Please add my name to the long list of your readers whose minds you are on.
I always love your posts, but this one really got me. As my own grandfather (a WWII Navy vet, South Pacific) said often during his incredibly sad decline, "Old age isn't for pussies." I remember him fondly today, and wish for the millionth time that he was still here to meet my two little boys... they so would have adored each other. The world is less colorful without my Pawpaw in it.
beautiful. just beautiful.
It's the men who aren't demonstrative that just crush you into a million, grateful, love-filled bits when they finally admit what you knew all along.
{add another nod for the possible UTI, they don't always come with the "seeing stars" kind of pain}.
Goodness, you come from a long line of awesome.
And yes, seconding what others have mentioned... make sure they are thoroughly investigating all physical causes. My husband's grandmother had the entire cast of the Bible living in her house and a knife in her purse for protection before doctors realized it wasn't just old-age battiness. She was having ministrokes caused by unchecked diabetes.
My heart goes out to you and your family. Unfortunatly in life these things all seem to come at once, which seems unbelievably unfair. In the span of 9 months we lost my husband's grandmother, my grandfather, and my husband's mother. 1 month later we found out why we're weren't getting pregnant. It was by far the worst year of my life and ironically my first year of marriage.
I'll be thinking of you and your family and hoping things go well with the rest of your donor cycle. You certainly deserve to have something go your way this year.
Indeed, a lovely tribute. I am always in such awe of that generation. Such self-sacrifice with such modesty. So different than many today.
I have also seen infection cause odd symptoms. My grandmother had occult infection that trashed her electrolytes leading to aphasia and incoherence. Hope you see some more moments of improvement.
Thinking of all of you.
Beautiful tribute, beautiful picture.
This brought tears to my eyes. I am currently losing my great-grandmother, who raised me alone from the age of 11 on to Alzheimer's. It is such a sad, devastating disease.
Your family and loved ones will be in my thoughts. Thank you for sharing this with us.
:hugs: Julie. I just don't know what to say. It's been a hard year for me and my boy too... we just hope it's "paying forward" for what's to come.
Beautiful, beautiful tribute.
Take care.
Just gorgeous. Happy Veteran's Day to you and yours.
(from the daughter of a Vietnam Vet, grand-daughter of a WWII vet, and great-great-grand-daughter of a Civil War veteran)
Beautiful. The pope's loss indeed.
A very moving tribute. Your grandfather sounds like a wonderful man.
Oh, Julie. You really must stop writing these posts... and then posting them at a time when I'm at work while I'm reading them. It's not good for my "business office demeanor." My father passed away from ALS in July, so the loss of all things mental (but only toward the very end, thank god) is not foreign to me. It's the hardest part, when they don't really know who you are -- when they think you are your mother, or your sister, or, worse, a stranger. Your grandmother has the healthiest outlook, I think -- not denial, but forebearance. Because, really, what else can she do, but howl at the rainstorm? May you find your peace with him, and with all the memories that he's given to you.
~C~
Add me to the list who has been instantly reminded of my grandfather(s) by your post. Neither of whom spoke indepth about their service (U.S.M.C and U.S. Navy) (but my Grammy always spoke of all the places they would visit, the other Col.s wives, the parties they would throw). I now have all of my Grampy's medals and I make my Grammy tell me the stories, as much as she can remember, that go along with them.
There was something about the men in that generation, at least the ones in the service that I have met. It's something so understated, I can't put my finger on it, a quiet dignity maybe? But it sounds like your grandfather has it too. A beautiful tribute.
It appears your way with words has some beautiful roots, Julie.
I agree with those who mentioned ruling out infection, and if it hasn't been looked into it should be.
That said, I watched my great grandmother, am amazing woman as she succumbed to Alzheimer's and I guess I just want to say I know. I get it. I'm here.
Make me cry, why don't you? I mean, not just a little either. Make me sob relentlessly for a love that spans 61 years and a woman who will stand by him till the end. Your grandparents aren't just in love... They ARE love. And your grandfather is exceedingly lucky to have you for a granddaughter - someone who loves and respects him so much and honors him so beautifully.
Damn you vile woman. Stop..making...me...cry...unexpectedly...at the office.
Hi Julie,
I'm not sure how to get in touch with you privately, and I don't want to post my email address here, but I am a geriatrician and what you are describing doesn't sound like classic dementia - at least of the alzheimer's (or similar conditions) variety - to me. First of all, people don't "abrubtly" develop demented symptoms - and if they do, there's a good chance that whatever is causing the problem can be reversed. Secondly, the paranoia and hallucinations strongly suggest an alternative explanation than dementia. I strongly suggest you (or your mother, or someone) call his physician and get him worked up medically right away - it's quite likely he can recover his "marbles", and if not, then he may well have suffered a stroke or other neurological trauma that needs to be noted, assessed and treated to prevent future problems (and just to give you a better idea of what you're working with.) If you as the site administrator can see my email address, feel free to email me for more specific information; depending on where you (and your grandfather) live I can reccommend some excellent resources. Good luck.
Also, I love your blog. I've never posted before, but have been reading for years - and am finally 21 weeks along with my own miracle. You've been an inspiration to me a long time - I hope this helps.
my paternal grandfather was medical (inguinal hernia, all the men in our family have it, but back then surgery for it was Really Goddamned Scary) and did not go, and he worked in the scrap metal business instead (also enough to get him deferred). my maternal grandfather also served in the pacific.
he'd lost his medals over the years, most likely to five kids playing army with them. a couple years ago my mother found that a soldier may get up to two sets per lifetime -- the original and a replacement -- at no cost. so she ordered a new set for him.
army.
wwii.
pacific service.
army of occupation.
atomic veteran.
bronze star.
his citation and record was lost in the national archives fire in st louis in 1973, and his records are now incomplete because of it, but we had his DD-214 that listed some of the highlights.
like your grandfather, he doesn't say much about it. he saw a picture on tv a few years ago of the bomb dome in heroshima, now kept as a memorial. "oh yeah," he said, "i saw that."
and of course as an atomic veteran, part of the army of occupation while everything in the area was still hot, he gets medical care from the va.
but he doesn't talk about it.
Ah, I didn't read all the posts before I posted. Yes, your other commenters are right - UTIs, ministrokes, medications - all sound like plausible explanations to me (and there are a bunch more). Smart group! Best of luck to you again, I hope that this information helps. One last thing - don't assume that just because your grandfather is seen regularly by doctors that they are not mistaking the delightlfully phrased "old age battiness" cited in a post above. Unfortunately, very few doctors are actually geriatric specialist, and are as likely as the general population to assume someone is "senile" or "demented" when they are actually not. Be a strong advocate for your grandfather by insisting he be worked up for alternate causes of his behavior.
Julie,
I am sooooo sorry how tough a year this has been for you and your family. I lost a grandfather years ago to dementia, and just lost my other grandpa less than a year ago. Your tribute brought tears to my eyes, how I wish I had a letter from my grandpa like that, how I wish I had listened better when he spoke of the "old days". Hang in there.
Julie I am sorry,
I often think that losing someone to dementia is one of the crullest ways. They *look* like they should, but they're never ever capable of being the person they were. It hurts, and it's terribly sad. I went through it with my grandfather, too.
xx
J
Oh, Julie. It's so hard. I'm crying with you, too.
What a wonderful tribute, Julie.
My grandfather was a navy pilot during WWII, in Russia. He used to tell us stories about the war, when we were little. Now that we have grown up, he does not, and it makes me so sad, because that part of history will be gone forever when he is gone.
Extremely well written, Julie. What a fantastic memento you have.
Brought me to tears as well...with a hearty laugh at the bourbon/Ensure combo! Here's hoping some calm comes your way.
Hey Julie -
My family is going through this as I type also. My Grandfather is 84.. a ww2 air force vet who became a Col, and was decorated, but understated like yours.
We will probably have to say goodbye to him this week. Strength to you and your family as well as to mine and any others going through this.
Thank you for saying some of the things I would like to say but don't know how.
Brought me to tears. Take care.
My father does have dementia, of the slowly progressive forgetting chunks of his life kind, but his sudden exacerbation, when he thought that there were Spaniards having a party under the floorboards, was also due to a UTI, and correct treatment improved him dramatically; similarly with a friend's mother, who at her worst was imagining a three headed doctor and a dog show on the ward, and is now back to just forgetting what day of the week it is and how long since her daughter last visited. I do so hope the geriatrician who commented is right.
Your grandfather sounds like a wonderful man. I lost my own grandfather only 2 months ago, also a WWII vet. What you wrote about your grandfather was so beautiful and touching.
I am so glad your grandfather could write that story down for you. I have been asking my grandmother to write things down for us, and she has been putting it off. And now dementia is claiming her too, in episodes that seem to come closer and closer together.
I am so sorry you are loosing your grandfather, and the thought of your mother's staggering losses fill me with sadness, thoroughly.
I'm so sorry for the loss of your father and for your grandfather's illness.
You're fortunate to have known your grandfather. I never met either of mine. One was a portrait painter who lost his money in the Great Depression, went blind, and then died on New Year's Eve 1945 drunk in a snowbank.
The other was commodore of a shipping line. He made speed records that stood for 30 years, had his appendix removed on board ship with a couple of shots of whiskey for an anesthetic and met his wife (my grandmother) as she fled from the Russian Revolution with her diamonds sewn into her hat.
They don't make men like our grandfathers any more.
Truly beautiful!
You write so beautifully, Julie. That is a touching portrait. Well done indeed.
Excellent tribute. I chose to write about my family for the NaBloPoMo challenge for some reason, and I started out talking about my grandfather. So many signs have been prodding me - we celebrate his 90th birthday in a few weeks and we have GOT to get the digital recorder out and capture some of his WWII stories. They really were the greatest generation, so brave and yet so humble. It'll be a loss to future generations not to have known men (and women!) like this personally. I hope recording some of his (and grandma's) stories will create memories for my daughter in the future about this man she's probably not going to ever be old enough to remember.
Julie that was incredibly beautiful. It reminded me of my dad. He lied about his age to enlist after his oldest brother had been killed. He spent the war in a submarine, once doing silent running through the Sea of Japan.
He rarely shared stories with us but lived with nightmares of things he had seen for the rest of his life.
Thanks Dad and I miss you so. It's been 28 years and I can still see your face, hear your laugh and remember the things you taught my sisters and I.