Another Thing My Grandpa Made

One reason I was surprised that my grandpa made that desk is because most woodwork he does has a crude style.

My grandma mentioned he also made the bed in the second spare room. I've rarely noticed that bed because I've always used the first spare room. I went upstairs to investigate.



The bed itself is covered various fragile seasonal decorations, which are themselves covered in plastic. (Such a grandma room.) The soldier in the photo in the center is my cousin Tim. He's been in the National Guard for years and I understand is a major. He came back from Afghanistan with a sore on his face that wouldn't heal, told me that kept him out of Iraq, round one. Now he is in Iraq. May love protect him. He has 2 little ones and another on the way. I'm not close to him, but my heart aches for him and his family. My aunt, his mother, gave my grandma some black and white copies of photos of Tim with his kids while he was in training before he left. He was in the pool with his daughter Gracie, her arms hidden in water-wing bubbles. It seemed to me I could see in his eyes he knew he was seeing the possibility of his own death while he held his daughter in the water, possibly for the last time. I looked at that photo and I thought I could be looking at the last photo of my cousin with his little daughter. Will that little girl remember him, or will her memory be of that photo of the memory of him?