by Jack Stapleton, Jr.
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by Jack Stapleton, Jr.
When the Fourth of July rolls around, I instinctively remember my grandfather. He suffered a stroke after an Independence Day holiday while I was home on Navy leave during World War II. His illness seemed all the more tragic for he had been my lifelong idol. He was a fountain of infallible wisdom, the epitome of courtesy and kindness. I had known he was special by his accomplishments, always unmentioned, for he had not only sired six children and sent them to colleges in the East and in Europe, he had built a protective glass wall around my grandmother to shield her from the vagaries of the world outside.
Granddad owned and operated an insurance agency that spanned more than 100 years in the small city of Albany, Mo. He also accumulated farm acreage, which he leased to carefully chosen families that met his requirements of hard-working, honest, dependable and God-fearing. Just before I was to return to duty, we had our last visit. His words of which I can still recall virtually word for word, and made all the more remarkable because the word “fading” is the adverb now preceding my memory.
Since we’re friends, I don’t hesitate to share his last words, if you’re interested in what a 92-year-old grandfather might say on America’s day of independence to a grandson he knew he would never see again.
“We’ve had a good journey together, and you have made it a wonderful experience as I watched, perhaps at times too proudly, the lives of my three grandsons. Now you’re going to experience a different kind of world, not only because we are at war but because the world is changing — as it has always changed — and our world will in many ways be different than the one I knew when your grandmother and I got in a buggy and left Fayette for Albany in the last century. As you make your trip you will experience some of the same feelings I did more than 60 years ago: uncertainty, nervousness, excitement and even in brief moments, fear.
“Don’t keep these feelings any longer than you have to, since they are normal and to be expected. The future is only frightening because we feel inadequate and know nothing about what will become of us. Trust me, the future is never as dark as you will imagine, nor will it ever be as grand as you may hope.
“It will be your challenge to make yourself useful in this world so that whatever fears you have imagined will never take on the proportions your imagination makes them. Remember that a life that cares about others is much preferable to one that is centered on improving your own. You can spend all the time and effort and money you wish to make your life easier and more comfortable and more successful, but you will never succeed until you decide that your comfort is less important than your legacy of love and friendship and trust for the other fellow.
“The trick is to make that your legacy, and I hope it is the one you will remember every Fourth of July, not because it is more important than any other holiday but because it commemorates our commitment to others and to those who will follow them. Washington’s men went to war not to protect a government, because one didn’t even exist then, but to gain for their fellow citizens the rights and privileges of being free men. Every time I become discouraged, I remember those farmers, merchants and laborers who pledged the most valuable commodity they had — their lives — for something they didn’t know nor had ever experienced before but only dreamed about.
“You might say, grandson, they planted seed for a crop they had never seen, much less harvested. That’s why the Fourth is so special, and why it will help you where you’re going. Your grandmother and your uncles and aunts are worrying themselves sick about you and Billy, but I know you’ll both be fine. You’ll make it, and maybe your old granddad will still be around. If I’m not, you know I love you and always will, regardless of the number of Fourth of Julys that we both have left.”
Thank you, Mr. Will.
(Writers note: William Peery Stapleton died at the age of 92 on Sept. 2, 1945, the date of the formal surrender of Japan, marking the end of World War II.)
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