On Family History
There is always another story, waiting to be surfaced, ready to come up for air.
Every few years, my brother and I take a father-son trip with my dad, and this year we traveled to San Diego to visit an aircraft carrier and diesel submarine anchored in the city’s harbor. My grandfather (my dad’s dad) was an admiral in the Navy, the commander of a submarine, and the hero in the rescue of his crew after his submarine partially exploded and ultimately sank in the arctic seas during WWII. In San Diego, we ducked through the cramped, claustrophobic quarters of this WWII submarine. We asked questions about our dad growing up, about our grandfather, about submarine warfare and PTSD and being depth-charged 500 feet below the waves…we asked questions we never asked before and we heard stories we never heard before. No matter how familiar and intimate we are with the people and places in our lives, there is always another story, waiting to be surfaced, ready to come up for air.