Jewells of Thought

There are days that we remember. Days are not always special in that they were exactly good days on these specific days, but they are poignant ones that have to be remembered due to the overwhelming statistics of the results. There are two reasons why I remember this 6th day of June.

Firstly, it’s my Grandma’s birthday it was special because she made everything special. Secondly, she was married to Grandpa and is one of the reasons I began to comprehend life and family differently.

Life is all about timing, missed chances and making decisions worrying about the previous two. I am not certain if it is a blessing that my other Grandpa walked the beach of Normandy about a month after the initial landings on the Utah Beach sector or not. What would have happened if he enlisted just a month earlier? Timing matters.

What if he had left with the initial group from England with the troops the night before? Could he have been saved from the POW camp or would I never have been born because one set of my grandparents didn’t get married? So was his landing in July a blessing by missing the d-day experience or did that very decision to send him as a replacement into Patton’s 3rd Army precisely put him in the danger he found himself in on July 22 and 23?

Yes I over-analyze, but you know until thinking about what to write for Tuesday this literally just fell out of my head. Grandpa missed one of the most deadliest days for the Americans of the war, yet not quite two months later the Germans took home to Germany the biggest payday for them and the last of the Second World War of a successive ambush. Von der Heydte was rewarded by a 200 plus roster of prisoners.

Some of Grandpa’s health problems were initiated from that ambush. Yet with all of the need to analyze my information on his service I still cannot forget the biggest element in Grandpa’s life that is not necessarily in the reports. I remember the first time I saw in his handwriting how he talked about a Bible study in Acts in France. I was blown away that I have evidence of my Grandpa’s grounded faith his mother blanketed him in. I am absolutely certain she prayed for him as often as a loving, God-fearing mother would.

God had a will for Grandpa Leo’s life and I am still finding amazing truths in the letters he left behind for his ‘Honey’ at home. Because of D-Day so many boys never came home to their girls or families. We remember and pay homage to the ones who never came home by standing up for the National Anthem being played looking up at the flag they died for for us.

My family was extremely blessed that Grandpa wasn’t one of those who died that day. It was the will of God, even being delivered to a war torn country the Lord protected Grandpa through his incarceration. He endured being strifed by the Russians, yet God kept him safe through the work camps. It’s truly a blessing he was brought home and God brought my generation into this world. I am humbly blessed to be working on this book and mortified by possibly screwing it up. I have more than one family incorporated in the story of this book. Timing is still key and I want to tell this story as accurately as I possibly can 23 years after his death.

Does your family have a story to tell about one of those boys? Mere teenagers most of them. Or maybe a different hemisphere of the War? Possibly the South Pacific?

Ask some questions!