A free-verse poem in memory of my uncle, whom I never knew. |
I never knew you. You were killed at Normandy during the D-day invasion four months before my birth, one of the many young men who paid the ultimate price to secure victory against Nazi tyranny. Your sister was my mother. Your mother, my grandmother, had your photograph, encased in a patriotic display with the flag presented to her by the Army, prominently placed on a high mantel in the living room of the house we all shared. I saw your face daily while I was growing up. My father says you were his best friend, that you introduced him to your sister. My dad told me as I was growing up that you were the best of them all, a man well worth knowing. My mom told me you always were your mother’s favorite child. Your mother never got over your death. Every Saturday your brother Homer would drive her out to the cemetery on the far edge of town to place fresh-cut flowers on your grave. She always cried. I enjoyed going along each Saturday when I was a young boy because we would stop on the way home at a small country store. Grandmom always bought me a RC cola, into which I put a pack of Tom’s salted peanuts…what a treat! I liked visiting your grave. Life treated you unfairly. You died too young, never marrying, never becoming a father, never having a career. You missed out on a lifetime. You must have been special, judging by the lingering love others kept for you. Now, you are fading from living memory, like you never once walked this earth. Your parents are dead, as is your brother and my mother. The only family member still alive who actually knew you is my ninety-one-year-old father, your old best friend. You’d be proud to know Pop still says you were the best of all of them. Today you still exist as a memory to both my sister and me, but we both are growing somewhat senior. Before long, no one alive will remember that you lived. Before that happens, I (along with all my children and my grandchildren) just want to thank you for being there to introduce your best friend Harry to your younger sister Marcile. We all greatly appreciate your having done so. We owe much to a man none of us knew. Please check out my ten books: http://www.amazon.com/Jr.-Harry-E.-Gilleland/e/B004SVLY02/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0 |