I went to see my peepaw every Thursday at the State Veteran’s Home. My father told me it was a minute step-up from a civilian’s old folks home, but only because he got to die the way all soldiers want to: with fellow forgotten heroes.
When he first arrived, they gave him six months, but not even god could tell a Marine when they’re going to die—he gave the doctor and god a proper fuck you and survived another two years.
“You’re the child of a long line of stubborn men, son,” my father told me on our way to see peepaw one Thursday night. “Your grandfather survived the Frozen Chosen, I survived the battle of Hue, and your great grandfather survived Gettysburg. Us Lorraines have survived every war we’re known to have fought in. Your Great great grandfather is the only known Lorraine to not enlist and fight for his country…but not out of cowardice, out of principal. He fought battles as a civilian; he fought with words and civil disobedience; he wrote pamphlets condemning the Indian Wars and championed abolitionism; he chose jail over paying taxes for the Mexican American war, and almost died alone, in a cold dark cell, but he, like all Lorraines, survived, giving his heart to the ideals and principles his father and grandfather instilled in him, up to the very last beat of his heart…”
I interrupted my father’s patriotic oration, “Did peepaw die?”
Peepaw was, like my father is now, dying of coronary heart disease, and earlier that day, he lost his final battle to a heart attack. The only kind of attack Lorraines don’t survive.
Pretty Words for Ugly Thoughts 