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. 

I went back and found and tagged all the stories and photos I’ve posted about my father’s father. It’s kind of amazing how much there is and how it happened without my ever making a conscious decision to write about him. Now I’m thinking about sharing some of it with my dad and my uncles, which would be an unprecedented event in the Santiago family’s history.

Also, another World War II army photo. He’s the one on the left.