My mother was born while my grandfather was in France. During WWII. (That’s her in the photo with my grandmother).
At one point, he got separated from his unit and survived by living in a hole on a farmer’s land. The farmer wasn’t thrilled, but let him stick around for a while and drink milk straight from his cows.
He eventually found his way back to his peeps. Without a cell phone. Or GPS. Or Google.
My grandmother was worried about his state of mind, and of course, during that time, men were all about having a boy to carry on all the family what-not. My grandfather was no different. He ended up having four girls….but I digress.
When my grandmother wrote him to tell him about my mother’s birth, keeping in mind that she wanted him to be as emotionally and mentally upbeat as possible, she wrote something like:
“I had the baby. I named it Jimmie Dean.”
Completely leaving out the part about the fact it was a girl. So, really, super thoughtful, but maybe, not so much in the end.
However, my grandfather wasn’t disappointed. And I’m certainly not. My mom is a terrific example of overcoming adversity and being an independent woman, even if her mail does get mixed up with my dads.
The lesson: There’s probably a good story behind everything you think is “odd”.
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