You came into this world during the Great War.
When the doughboys came marching home,
They brought the deadly Spanish flu.
As a tiny baby, you caught it too.

Your mother died when you were just a little tot;
Your grandmother raised you and your brothers, too.
When just a boy, you moved away from the land you loved—
From grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins by the slew—
To a place where no one knew your name.

To make matters worse, there was the Great Depression,
Followed by yet another war in which you served your nation.
You didn’t so much as receive a scratch or lose a drop of blood
In the many fierce battles you fought upon the vast Pacific.
But you came home with scars that would not heal;
No one understood the wounds they could not feel.

All you endured from your youth left you hardened,
A man few could understand—why you were the way you were.
But under that crusty shell beat a good, but weakened heart.
You taught me how to work, but never how to play;
I learned the kind of man I should be,
But also the kind of man I didn’t want to be.

You were a hard man to live with, and many turned away,
But I had a choice, and by your side I chose to stay.
We were so different, you and me, yet so much alike.
I have now lived longer than you ever did;
You died with so much more life to live.
My children never knew you, save for what they see in me
And the many stories you told to me.

I have missed you these many years
And long to see you again—
Then it will be in a place and time
Where your unseen scars have finally healed,
And you can see things as they really are.