Vachon Imagined

Today is my grandfather’s birthday.

His name was John Nick.

I was told that his father came to this country from Rhodes, Greece, carrying the same dream that has carried so many before him: to become something. To build a life. To create a future larger than the one he left behind.

And in many ways, he succeeded.

He had a son who grew into a handsome man, strong in his own way, hardworking, devoted to providing for his family. A man who spent long days away from home trying to build a life for the people he loved.

I didn’t know my grandfather in the traditional sense. He wasn’t the kind of grandfather who spent endless hours with me. He was restless. A jumpy man. A man who seemed uncomfortable sitting still inside his own skin.

Some said it was because he lost his mother at a young age. Others believed it was the war. He served as a Marine in World War II and, like many men of his generation, returned home carrying things no one could see.

I don’t know exactly what shaped him.

But something did.

Many things did.

He once told me he could no longer eat chicken because he had killed so many while overseas just to survive. It was one of those small details that says more than a hundred stories ever could.

Something stayed with him.

He needed Ativan until the day he died just to be among the living. He was an addict, and strangely, that made me feel closer to him. I understood what it meant to be driven by something larger than reason. To spend years trying to quiet an ache that would not leave.

The need to be someone.

The need to be loved.

The need to escape.

The need to continue.

We bonded over having both served in the military—me in the Army, him in the Marine Corps and previously the Coast Guard. He spoke to me about things that, apparently, he didn’t share with many others. His depression. His medications. His struggles.

An unusual connection, perhaps.

But a real one.

And when we spoke about those things, there was someone else present too.

The memory of my brother.

My brother had succumbed to his depression through suicide, and though neither of us spoke directly about him, I often felt his presence there between us.

Not as sadness.

Not as grief.

But as understanding.

A quiet recognition that did not need words.

My grandfather knew what it meant to carry something heavy.

I knew what it meant to lose someone to that weight.

And somehow, in that space, it was simply understood.

For all the conversations we shared, it is that quiet understanding that I remember most.

My memories of him are mostly warm.

I remember Christmas Eve, sitting with him as he helped fuel my imagination. We would watch for Santa together, and because of him, I swear I saw him. He made room for wonder in a child’s mind, and I will always be grateful for that.

I remember watching him get ready in the mornings. The smell of aftershave. The tattoos on his arms that fascinated me. Stories of the war. His voice calling out to his wife, whom he affectionately called “Bett,” short for Betty.

Their morning ritual played out like a scene I can still hear.

Coffee black for her.

Coffee with cream for him.

Small exchanges that seemed ordinary at the time but now feel sacred.

And every time he left, he would squeeze me tightly, much the way I imagine his own father must have hugged him.

“See you later, alligator.”

And I would answer, “After while, crocodile.”

He wasn’t a perfect man by this world’s standards.

But he lived.

He loved.

He struggled.

He endured.

He carried wounds he couldn’t always heal and burdens he couldn’t always set down.

And yet he still found ways to laugh, to imagine, to hug, to tell stories, and to love the people around him.

Many people on their deathbed would trade places with such a life in a heartbeat.

So today, when my mother reminded me that it was his birthday, I immediately heard his voice.

Not the voice of the veteran.

Not the voice of the addict.

Not the voice of the man struggling to stay afloat.

The voice of my grandfather.

The man who squeezed me goodbye.

The man who helped me see Santa.

The man who loved me in the ways he knew how.

And without thinking, I heard myself answer:

“After while, crocodile.”