They said Grandpa had “the palsy.” That’s why his hands trembled as he chain-smoked Terrytons, lighting one from another. In those days, we didn’t discuss unpleasant things — in the truest southern tradition.
We didn’t talk about my grandmother’s first husband, who had perished in a Taylor, Texas hotel fire in 1943, or so much as a whisper about the years of sorrow doused in the alcoholism afterward. In a word, we preached “Pollyanna.”
Oh, there were whispers that we weren’t “really” related to grandpa, but by time I came around, the bad times were a distant memory. Yet there are those in my family who never managed to make it past the fact we were not “blood kin.”
Honestly, I don’t think my grandmother ever really recovered from the loss of her first husband, a classically handsome man who was the romantic love of her life. “Pop,” by contrast, was of slight physical build and essentially a loner.
The memory of my biological grandfather has been lost since the death of my mother and the essence of his person is mostly a mystery to me. For my part, Sam Bedford is the only grandpa I ever knew, and that is just fine by me.
Like so many men of his generation, World War II changed Pop. Grandma always said he was a different person before the war. I was aware that he had joined the army just before his 34th birthday, but for years, I knew more about his activated charcoal filters than what he had done during the war.
Stationed in New Guinea, his temporary island home was overrun by the Japanese, forcing him and his fellow soldiers into the jungles. He almost never addressed what happened out there, except to say the beaches stunk with the smell of rotting flesh.
When he emerged from the jungles, he weighed less than 100 pounds.
Before the war, Pop was the salutatorian of his graduating class at the University of Arkansas practiced calligraphy, penning many a Christmas card. After the war, he could barely sign his name. What happened in those jungles haunted him for the rest of his life.
In 1949, my grandmother married Sam. It was a natural decision on her part. They had been the best of childhood friends, although never romantically involved (to the best of my knowledge). When they rediscovered each other in their mid-40s, the friendship was still bright, and strengthened by the depth of their collective pain.
From my perspective, they were a warm, loving couple that couldn’t get enough of the youngest of their grandchildren. I adored them, and there was no place I would rather have stayed than their house on the weekend. Every evening was filled with Dominoes, Flinch and Go-Fishin’. Lawrence Welk filled the air and food of every kind imaginable delighted my taste buds.
It was on just such a night that I discovered Pop was sitting on his couch with an old lock box, thumbing through old papers and photographs. I never wasted much time when there was an open seat next to him to be had, and I nestled myself in the crook of his arm.
“Who’s that?” I quizzed, pointing to one of the old faded black and white photographs in the box.
“That’s me in New Guinea during the war,” he said.
It didn’t look a thing like him. For starters, I had never seen him with a full head of hair. But I recognized the picture just under that one. Just one year later, it was Pop, looking like something from a concentration camp — gaunt and thin with protruding ribs and a receding hair line. It is a picture that is burned indelibly in my mind and always seems to surface around Veterans Day.
Pop said the Japanese forces were tough, and natives, who happened to be cannibals, didn’t make the jungle any more appealing. Men were dying daily of malaria and dysentery. When the soldiers would try to access the beach, Japanese Zeroes would spot them in strafing attacks.
Making matters worse, resupply was managed through air drops. Often, the hungry, diseased troops would watch crates of food, medicine, and ammunition fall down mountainsides just out of reach.
His eyes glazed over as his stare burned a hole in yet another picture. It was a war buddy who lost his life, along with 8,000 other Allied troops in the campaign.
There were other items in the box. Old foreign currency, medals, a few important-looking papers. It was the one and only time he ever told me anything about the war.
Finally, he shut the box, kissed me on the head, and headed for bed.
Later that night, I was roused from sleep by screams, and then the sounds of sobbing coming from my grandparents bedroom.
The next morning, Grandma looked tired.
“He has dreams, and in these dreams, he’s still there,” she said, adding that when he first returned from the war, “his waste was the size of two fists — literally.”
In some ways, I often think I knew him better than others in my family. In the end, we just spent more quality time together.
Grandpa outlived Grandma by many years. He refused repeated offers from family members, including myself, to come and stay after Grandma’s death. He chose the nursing home.
In time, his memory faded as Alzheimer’s set in. When I saw him a few days before he died, it was obvious the jungles of life had now taken their toll (he confused me with his old army buddies, subject matter I have discussed on this page in recent years). Within days, his fragile, 94-year-old body just couldn’t handle the stress of pneumonia that finally brought death to his door. Pop was a man who kept to himself, and had almost no close personal friends. His reclusive nature was evident at his funeral, as only a small handful of family members gathered to see him off to the happy hunting grounds.
It is easy to embellish, yet harder to tell the truth. But for some reason, it seems easier with Pop. His unassuming nature lends itself to accuracy. So when his life was over, all that was left was that cherished old lock box, which he left to me. After all — it was never really locked. Kinda like his heart, you just had to show an interest and open it.