War makes you a man; war makes you dead.

War makes you a man; war makes you dead.
I walk in to their house.
Normally, the smell of pancakes filled the air or Sinatra would be playing lightly in the background,
But today the only sound was the TV
The smell that filled my lungs was like the one of a untamed animal's cage.

He sat there on the brown couch.
In the same spot he used to sit,
When he could pick me up
Put me on his knee and tickle me till I turned red.

He didn't notice me .
I stood there waiting.
Then made the first move,

“Hi Grandpa.”

“Oh hi.”

He talked slower now.
He moved slower now.
Everything he did was in slow motion.

I sat next to him and watch the TV as he did.
War flashed on the screen.
He had a slight obsession but he would never talk about the war he went through.

There are pictures of him in his uniform and metals that he won.
The memorabilia was never hung with pride
Hidden in the basement or behind the candy jar.

Before, I was too young to ask him to tell me his war stories.
After, the stories he didn't tell became stories he couldn't tell.

He spoke in broken English.
We pretended to understand
Like when he was talking about a knife
We pretend to know he meant plate.
He started to speak less and less.

The man that he was started to dim away.
By the end he could do also nothing by himself.

My mom wouldn’t let me see him in the hospital
She didn't want to break the image of him that I had.

I don't know if I want to keep the imaging I had of him after the stroke.
I tried to remember before but it was hard.

I never knew and I never will know the battles he face in Korea
But I knew the war he was drafted in the end of his life.
It was a long and difficult one to watch.

He was killed by that battle.
But this war made him the man that I'll remember.