May. 30, 2010 at 2:04pm with 54 notes View comments
memorial dayvintage1945ish
My grandfather was a veteran of World War II. He’d been on the Normandy coast, though he missed the gruesomeness of D-Day proper.  In 1998, when I visited the graveyard there, I walked down to the ocean and collected some sand for him. I filled an empty film canister. (Remember those?)  It was an eerie experience. I’m sensitive to psychic disturbances, and I could almost hear the crush of souls hovering in the air over Omaha Beach. When I got back to New York, I visited my grandfather and told him what I’d felt there. He was something of a mystic himself, so he understood. He believed in stuff like that. He was an inspired carpenter, and he often said that his creations just sprang forth from the wood. His hands were tools, he said, but whose tools, exactly, he was never quite sure. 

My grandfather was a veteran of World War II. He’d been on the Normandy coast, though he missed the gruesomeness of D-Day proper. 

In 1998, when I visited the graveyard there, I walked down to the ocean and collected some sand for him. I filled an empty film canister. (Remember those?) 

It was an eerie experience. I’m sensitive to psychic disturbances, and I could almost hear the crush of souls hovering in the air over Omaha Beach. When I got back to New York, I visited my grandfather and told him what I’d felt there. He was something of a mystic himself, so he understood. He believed in stuff like that. He was an inspired carpenter, and he often said that his creations just sprang forth from the wood. His hands were tools, he said, but whose tools, exactly, he was never quite sure. 

  1. volatileessence said: I had a really hard time when I visited Omaha Beach. My brain couldn’t reconcile how beautiful it was with what horrors took place there.
  2. enjoli said: This post is great!
  3. socialismandrum posted this
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