A letter to my grandfather who never got to tell his story

Dear Grandpa

I do not know where to begin, so I will start with what weighs on me the most: I did not ask you enough.

I had time. I had opportunities. Every Sunday, when we drove out to your house for lunch and you sat in that old wooden chair by the window, I could have asked you more. I could have asked you to tell me again about the night the barn roof blew off in the storm. I could have asked you the name of the friend you worked with during the harvest of sixty-three. I could have sat beside you with a notebook and written it all down.

But I did not. Because I was twenty, and twenty is an age when you believe time is unlimited. That grandparents will always be there. That stories can always wait.

They cannot.

What I remember about you

I remember your hands. They were enormous, cracked, with the nails always trimmed short and the skin hardened by sun and soil. Hands that had been working since you were eight years old, when your father pulled you out of school because you were needed in the fields more than in a classroom. You never complained about that. Or if you did, it was never in front of us.

I remember that you woke up before the sun every single day. Including Sundays, even though Grandma told you to rest. You said the land does not know what a weekend is, and you headed out with the hoe over your shoulder while the town was still asleep.

I remember the smell of the wood stove in winter. I remember the sound of water falling into the stone trough in the yard. I remember that you always wore a flat cap, even in August, and that you only took it off to enter the church and to go to sleep.

I remember you teaching me to tell soil apart with my hands. That clay soil sticks to your fingers and sandy soil slips through. That if the earth smells good after the rain, it is healthy. I was seven and I thought it was the most interesting thing in the world. I still do.

I remember that you never talked about the war. That when someone brought it up, you changed the subject or walked out to the garden. Only once, a single time, did I hear you say something. It was a summer afternoon, sitting on the porch with your brother, when you thought no one was listening. You said something about a road, about walking at night, about being hungry. I did not understand it all. I never dared to ask.

What I do not know about you

It is a long list, Grandpa. Embarrassingly long.

I do not know exactly where you were born. I know it was on a farmstead near the town, but I do not know which one. I do not know who your godparents were or who chose your name. I do not know what school you attended during the few years you went, or who your teacher was, or whether you liked studying.

I do not know how you met Grandma. I have heard different versions: that it was at the county fair, that it was at church, that a cousin introduced you. I never found out which one was true because I never asked you directly.