The Sunday Memory Drawer - My Namesake

It's Memorial Day weekend so let's remember a soldier.  Here's one who was a relative that I never met.

More importantly, I was named after him.

He was one of my father's three brothers.  My dad was the youngest.  I've have to look up records to find out where this never-seen uncle fell chronologically.  In a family unit that didn't share a lot of information on their most transparent days, I know even less about "Uncle Lenny."

Except that he was killed in the south of France about two weeks before the Nazis surrendered and almost at the same that Hitler bought the big one in the bunker.  I remember when I first saw that date.  How ironic.  So close and yet...   I wondered if anybody in my family acknowledged and lamented that bitter irony.

As usual, nobody said a thing.

Oh, my grandmother would casually mention him in a story.  There was a Purple Heart (I think it was purple) that hung in her living room.  I recall once her pulling some mementos out of a drawer.  There was a small flag that you could hang in your window during World War II and it signified how many in your household were serving in the military.  And there was another hanging cloth that let folks know you had lost a loved one.

Years later, I personally ran across some papers after my grandmother died.  There were several letters from the War Department letting my family know in what French cemetery he was laid to rest.  The actual longitude and latitude of his gravesite was listed.  Not that anybody went to visit it.  Ever.  There were other notes and documents that effectively closed out my uncle's life as far as the military was concerned.  Oddly, the telegram providing the grim news was not saved.  Or, perhaps, it was thrown away in a hailstorm of emotions.

I don't know.  More questions.  And now and forever, no answers.

Another level of confusion pops up.  I think about my uncle's grave in the south of France.  What was the thinking behind this?  Was there any thought to bringing him home to the United States?  I asked my grandmother once and she didn't remember.  Or want to remember?

I once heard a rumor that my mother was dating my uncle before ultimately hooking up with my dad.  When I would pose this query, I'd get the usual wave of the hand.  True?  False?  Or simply "go away, kid?"

Now I did know that my uncle was engaged to be married to a woman named Stella when he died.  I'm in on this intel because my grandmother sent her a Christmas card every year.  I used to write them out for her, so I would use the opportunity every December to do a little fishing.

"You sending a card to Stella?"

Of course.  But little else came.  Except that she was a nice girl and lived in the Bowery.

Like a bum, I asked.

I was told I asked too many questions.  Frankly, I didn't ask enough.

So the non-information continued to flow.  And, ultimately, the number of relatives available for that thought-provoking press conference started to dwindle.

Leaving me with a Sunday Memory Drawer that is sadly empty.

Until...

To be continued.

Dinner last night:  Philly cheese steak sandwich at Pig N' Whistle.