A GRANDDAUGHTER REMEMBERS by Monica Dunn Royer

As a young girl I remember thinking that my grandparents-- my Nana and Dada-- were like any anyone’s. I remember listening to stories of the War often told in the abbreviated way that was necessary for a child’s ear. As their only granddaughter at the time, I remember them giving me special attention. As a preschooler, I even was able to spend time alone with them in their ranch house in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I remember the gazebo in the back. I remember Bonnie, their toy collie. Mostly, I recall that my Nana would talk to me about who I would someday fall in love with and marry. We would head over to the local A & W Root Beer drive-in , sit inside the car and eat hamburgers while sipping root beer floats. It seemed to me that their life and their relationship were rather idyllic and that they simply existed for each other. Admittedly, I would sometimes hide in the bathroom and cry that I missed my Mom & Dad-- not realizing that this would be my only solo opportunity to be with Nana and Dada together.

Despite being very young at the time, I do remember many of their stories. Dada, for example, once told of his plane going down in the African desert and his having to walk for days back to his base. Nana talked of being a nurse and adding, laughingly, that Dada was by far her worst patient. He explained, in turn, that his towel would be thrown on the floor only when he needed to get the nurse’s attention. Both spoke of having seen terrible things in the war, but also of how they had fallen in love nonetheless.

I will never forget the last time that I saw Dada. He was waving to us from the steps of my Aunt Jane’s house back in Illinois, smiling as if nothing was wrong. He seemed so cheerful and so alive. He had wanted us to stay for ice cream, but we couldn’t. I can still see the vest he was wearing and the twinkle in his eye as we pulled out of the driveway. Even at the age of nine, I knew that he was ill and realized that this might be his last time with us. It was. Now, as an adult looking back on it all, I realize how brave he was to put on such a cheerful face when he knew he was dying.

I think back to my own father on the morning that we found out that Grandfather had died. It was the only morning that I can remember Dad not getting out of bed. Mom informed my little brother Andy and me that Dad would talk to us later. We didn’t wait, racing into our parents’ bedroom to cuddle and make him feel better. I don’t know that we succeeded.

After Dada’s death, Nana enjoyed some lucid years during which I sometimes visited with her at the nearby retirement home to which she had relocated. Together, we would read Agatha Christie novels while sipping “7-Up.” I remember trying to copy her mannerisms. I wanted the same red shade of “Clinique” lipstick that she wore as well as the white linen perfume that she always had on her dresser. We then would take a shopping cart to a local convenience store where we picked up treats for later. In the evening she would continue with her stories about the past and all its difficulties. And she would often repeat that my grandfather was the most handsome man she had ever seen. Then she would add that someday I would find a man like Grandfather and that I’d be very happy.

As the years passed, she slipped further and further away. When visiting her at the nursing home, I would sit at her bedside. Dada’s uniformed WWII photograph would look down on us from her dresser shelf. Even after all of the other names-- including mine-- had been forgotten, she seemed still to be remembering him. From her I learned that, at the end, all the bad is somehow erased while only the good remains.

The night that she died, I was alone in my studio apartment in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Being a sound sleeper, I usually make it through the night undisturbed. On this particular occasion, however, I awoke suddenly at around 3:30 AM. Listening into the night, I heard nothing. But in my heart I felt that she was gone. In the morning I called my parents for confirmation of what I already knew.

As I stood at the veterans’ cemetery near Joliet on that grim February day as my grandmother was buried, I had so many regrets. I wished that Dada had lived longer so that I could have known him better. I wished that Nana had been able to continue re- telling her stories as I was growing older when I would have been better able to appreciate them. I wished now that the family could linger at the cemetery longer. But the wind ripping through the grass on that February day would not allow it. As we were leaving, I wondered what additional stories were being buried with her-- stories we would never hear.

I always knew about the trunk in the basement. When Dad opened it, I was amazed at the extent of its contents. After that I remember Dad attempting to organize its contents by laying them about on his office floor. Even then I did not fully appreciate the extent of the gift that Nana had left behind. I did not yet know that the entire story of my grandparents’ relationship was available to us in their own words. My grandparents’ military adventures, their wartime courtship, and everything that followed-- both good and bad-- would be reassembled one letter at a time.