Happy Birthday, Grandi!

My grandma's birthday saved our family line

I agree with Gore Vidal — that to really understand American history, you have to start with family history. This is always the way.

Today would have been my grandma’s 106th birthday. She’s long dead now, buried in Arlington with my grandfather, the Rear Admiral, but I have long believed that a pesky thing like death never really ends the story. We live on, in ways small and large, long after our physical body decays.

Most family history is ho hum stuff, but as fate or circumstance would have it, some families seem to pop up with recurring frequency in the places where American history happens.

And so it was on that Day Which Shall Live in Infamy when my grandfather cheated death aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma.

“Big date in family history,” texted my father. “I am grateful that my father loved my mother so much that he had his duty station covered to attend my mother’s birthday. We wouldn’t here without that single act of love and devotion.”

My grandmother kept up that love and devotion when she took care of my wheelchair- bound grandfather, struck down with genetically-triggered rheumatoid arthritis after his long Navy career.

I have quite a few precious memories of my beloved Grandi, who was something of an obsessive with the stock market and who blessed seemingly everyone she encountered. When I visit the family property in Coronado I can almost bounce back in time. I once asked her about which of the X-Men were her favorite and she said, “I don’t know about any X-Men but I do know quite a bit about real men. You’re going to be a real man now aren’t you?”

I’m trying, Grandi, I’m trying. Miss you so much, all these years later.