Puppy

I realized today as I typed a date into a client database card it was my grandfather's birthday. He was in his sixties when he died in 1946.  I was four.

I remember he had white hair, was a semi invalid with a heart condition and was a grump with everyone but not with me.

He would be Freddie to my Flossie when I played Bobbsey Twins. Nan and Bert had to be make believe. Afterall Flossie had blond curly hair and Nan's was dark.

Mine was blond and curly with help just as today it's red with help.

I called him Puppy.

He was an engineer and worked on the projects for the Massachusetts State House and the Christian Science Monitor. When he took the qualifying exam the results said that he failed he asked to see his exam which was marked 0. There was an error--he'd answered every question right.

The day he died, I heard my grandmother screaming and my mother making me stand by the back door for what seemed like a long time. They didn't tell me he died. They told me he was in the hospital and later they said that a certain hour, I remember it as 10, he would be dead. I remember looking at the clock when it struck 10. I could count fairly well to 10 and even today my math ability seems limited to single and double digit numbers. I thought, Puppy is dead.

Probably only about three or four people remember him today: my brother, myself and a cousin whose grandfather was Puppy's half brother.

Someone once said as long as a person is remembered, that person is never truly gone. So at least for today Puppy lives on at least in my memory.