February 10, 2002 - Sunday
Jeremy's middle name, Arthur, comes from his great-grandfather and my maternal grandfather who died in the early hours of the morning today. He was 96 years old and had been living in a nursing home for the last few years, do to lost mobility and decreased self-sufficiency more than anything else. His knees could no longer support him for more than moments, but his mind remained sharp. At 96, he was tired much of the time, physically and emotionally, and rarely told the stories he used to, nor showed his twinkled-eyed, mischievous smile. Yet, even over the last couple years he seemed much the same person I grew up knowing.

Regretfully, Jeremy never met his middle-namesake and that's too bad. Jeremy wouldn't have remembered any such meeting, of course. Harry will most likely not either. To him, great-grandpa was probably an old man who sat in a chair and didn't say too much and for a toddler that's probably not all that memorable. And, grandpa probably enjoyed seeing Harry, the toddler, run around and make minor trouble for his parents more than he would have wanted to hold and fawn over a newborn. Still, it seems sometimes in life there are loops to be closed and affairs to be made tidy and having the generations together with a common link of a middle name, would have been one of those nice circles. As it was, Jeremy was born and the holidays came and most family, but not great-grandpa, came to us. Somehow, an outing to a nursing home some distance away with two small children never topped of our sleep-deprived agenda and that link was never made. Still, I have the past in memory and, with Jeremy Arthur, I have the future and, I guess, the real circle is unbroken.


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