My grandpa was killed in World War II. I met him through his letters home.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.

I grew up in the house my great-grandparents built, a home where four generations shared laughter, loss, and celebrations. These same walls that once harbored the joy of my grandfather’s courtship were the ones that eventually held the pain of the day my grandmother learned he had been killed in action during World War II.

While growing up in this same house, I always knew of a box of letters my grandfather, Otis Bryant, had written from the war, most of them addressed to his wife and some to his mother. I read one or two during childhood, but in my mid-20s, I felt compelled to read them all in chronological order.

The author’s grandmother, Marcella, raised Judy and Tommy as a single mother after her husband was killed during World War II. (Photo courtesy of Gina Wolf)He was my grandpa, and I loved him, but I never met him. Still, I wanted to know him because losing him left a large gap in our family: my grandmother became a widow in her early 20s, and my mother was left fatherless. I witnessed my mother’s enduring grief of never knowing him.

I relished every sentence of his letters. I would lay them out and invite my mother to read them as well, but she would just walk by and say that it was too hard.

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Source: Military Times
Website: www.militarytimes.com