Tribute

It’s surreal when death takes a loved one. You can't shake the feeling that they’re return is imminent, as they are simply away on an extended holiday. But, after watching my grandpa waste away from cancer, I knew he would live only in my memory. "From this point forward," I thought, "when describing him to friends or my future wife and children, I can no longer say, 'My grandpa is…'”

From the moment of his birth on June 25, 1921, Glenn Leroy Musso knew suffering. His parents thought he was still born and were ready to dispose of him before they realized he was alive. His father was a kind man who immigrated from Northern Italy. His mother was verbally and physically abusive, likely a result of mental illness. He was extremely intelligent, which earned him the derisive nickname "professor" from schoolmates. He loved music and had a beautiful voice. He wanted to sing opera. But, one day while riding his motorcycle as a young man, he hit an oil patch in the road, lost his balance, and slid for some distance, virtually scraping his nose off his face (thereafter, he had it surgically repaired). His mother, in her anger, broke all of his beloved opera records, which he treasured. He experienced another crushing heartbreak in his late teens when his handsome younger brother, Raymond, jumped off a pier just before his high school graduation, broke his neck on a sandbar, and died.

He went to war in 1941 at the age of 20. On leave before finally shipping out to Europe, he married my beautiful grandmother, Mary, who had to leave school early and travel out to Denver for the ceremony. Then he was gone. And he would not return the same.

As with so many who made it back from that war, my grandpa didn't want to talk about what he saw during those years of bloodshed. I was only able to coax a few stories out of him. I discovered that he flew sorties over Europe in a B-52. I asked him if he was scared when he flew a mission over Germany. He said that it was not uncommon for the crew to soil themselves because the fear was so palpable. He told me that he once saw anti-aircraft artillery explode in the sky in proximity to his airplane and he closed his eyes, convinced he would die, as the flak screamed toward him. It landed all around him, miraculously leaving him unscathed. He said he once had to mop his friend up out of a gunner turret. That was the last story he told me.

The War left him with physical (he spent 6 months in a full-body cast in England) and emotional wounds from which he never fully recovered. His body became so arthritic that his knees would swell to the size of a large grapefruit. Psoriasis drove him crazy. He drank to numb the pain. Alcoholism caused him to lose his job as an engineer. The shame he must have felt as my grandma dutifully went to work full time, plus overtime, in a factory at an aerospace company, is unimaginable. She was working there when they agreed to take my sister and I into their home when he was 60 years old and she was 57. Taking an unruly teenager and his little sister in after having reared triplets of their own was an act of generosity that I have yet to fully comprehend.

He had a great sense of humor. He would practically fall out of his seat in histerics watching the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. I got my love for the Los Angeles Rams (now St. Louis) and Dodgers from him. Sometimes he would let me stay up and watch Johnny Carson with him. I saw how he wished he could run with me. He took me bowling once (he had been in a league in his younger years). He fell straight to the ground on his very first approach.

He used to drive my friends and I to the beach during the summers. One summer, my best friend Wade and I were having so much fun that I met my grandpa at the appointed time and place and asked him if he would come back and pick us up later (it was a 40 minute round trip). He agreed. I'll never forget that. He bought me my first guitar, paid for my lessons, and encouraged me to do what I love. His generosity knew only the bounds of his physical limitations. Those limitations finally caught up to him. A lifelong smoker and drinker, he told us he had cancer. It's the only time I've ever seen my grandmother weep.

I vividly remember him lying on his death bed at home, his body racked with cancer. I still feel incredibly guilty for not spending more time with him at his bedside. But, it was just too painful to see the only man I loved as a father suffer so. Near the end he gave me a gift. Knowing that I had become a committed Christian, he called me to his room and sought to reassure me that he had accepted Christ into his heart and that I shouldn't worry, implying that he would see me in heaven. I believe him.

On July 3, 1987, the mortal wound he suffered decades earlier in the War finally bled out and took him from me. He finally succumbed under the weight of his lifetime of suffering. I've now lived as many years without him as I had with him (19). Tragically, I believe he thought his life had little meaning or worth. It is human nature to see ourselves through the prism of our flaws and shortcomings. But, his life was meaningful. His kindness, patience and generosity are the standards by which I measure my behavior toward my own children. And, without trying to sound to new-agey, at least in that way, his legacy lives through me. For all his faults and weakness, he died a hero in my eyes. I’m glad death abided long enough for me to know him. I hope that I am a better man because of him.