The Sunday Column – A life worth living

My Pawpaw, PFC Arnold McSwain — Pacific Front, WWII 1945, also pictured with my loving Mawmaw, Gertrude McSwain, in 1939 above, and early 2000’s lower right corner.

Special edition - Sunday Column

My grandpa “Pawpaw / Big Pawpaw”  was larger than life in the eyes of myself and my sister. He seemed to know how to do everything. 

He taught my sister and I everything from how to catch crawdads in the creek, to shooting snakes, building birdhouses, blueberry and strawberry pickin' and how to play “How the Saints Go Marching In” on the piano, the importance of the balance of nature of how everything plays its critical role in the circle of life, just to name a few.

And even though mom made us take piano lessons, “The Saints”  is the only song I can still play by memory today.

He knew so much.

Even though he dropped out of school after the 7th grade to help on his family farm, he was very intelligent - because you can teach things and the process for doing things, but you can’t teach someone intelligence.

Education and intelligence are not the same thing.

He knew everything from history to Heaven.  From politics to sports; he played (or tried to play) every instrument he got his hands on, he loved building computers from scrap parts, and was one of the wisest men I ever knew.   

His wisdom was a window to deeper thinking, and his love for his family and Christ was unwavering. He didn’t always express what he was feeling but he never had to, because his actions were louder than words.

I used to ask him about what it was like during World War Two and he never wanted to say much about it, and I respected that, even though I wished he would tell me more than just about an occasional funny story about something someone said or did.

He was already married and had two children when the War Department drafted him in 1944 at 26 years old. He wondered how things were actually going if they were at the point where married fathers, and 26 year olds to boot (which was an old draftee at the time) were being drafted in the service.

But he did what he had to do, not seeing his wife or children for two years; then once he returned form the Pacific, he got off the train in Shelby in 1946, and walked home to Broad Street. "There was Mawmaw in the kitchen, fixing dinner; Linda at the table, and Charlie running around the house." I think that memory meant more to him than anything else.

When he passed away, I thought about that -- and could see him walking in the house again, after having been gone from them for many years, with Mawmaw in the kitchen and my mother at the table waiting for him to get home... since they had passed away before him.

He dealt with the death of his daughter (my mother) with unbelievable strength. Both, he and My Mawmaw, and Uncle Charlie, all did. Only once, on a random day when I was visiting him and Mawmaw, he just looked at me and said, "A parent shouldn't outlive a child." My heart sunk, I didn't know how to respond. I just stared at him and he stared at me and then we both shook our head slightly and understood the sadness, and went back to visiting / chatting, trying to think of happier things.

He learned his lifelong career choice by a sergeant pointing to him and another, saying "You and you, you're mechanics now!" After two mechanics were killed, either by artillery shelling or Zeros strafing their unit - he never made that clear and I didn't push for an answer. He carried that trade through to retirement.

He and Mawmaw finally owned a house of their own in 1966 when he was 48 years old.

He changed the oil in my truck a couple of times when I was 16, until he decided that he couldn't get back up off the ground easily anymore, so I was going to have to do it myself or go to an oil change place. I tried it once and it didn't go well; I can still taste the oil in my mouth just thinking about that memory. He told me to get an education and do better than him. I had options and I should use them. I took my truck to get the oil changed every time after that.

He rescued me every single time I locked my keys in my truck, ran out of gas or wrecked my truck (which was more often than not).

One of the last coherent conversations we had together was not long after a long-term relationship ended unexpectedly, and I ran back to my hometown with my metaphorical tail tucked between my legs - my heart bruised, depressed and my mind & soul beaten..  I told him I felt lost and I didn’t know where I was in life and how to get back to where I needed to be.  

His only reply has stuck with me, and I’ve said it to others since then:

“You know how you got there don’t you?  Well, you just do the same to get back home, but in reverse..”

So, I did just that and moved back to my home town and went back to school, and went back to remembering whom I was and finding myself and starting over again.   

He molded my life twice: Throughout my childhood, and again as an adult.

When his mind began to fail him and he didn’t recognize his family anymore was when I quietly grieved his loss. We all did.

At his nursing home during a visit around my birthday, he asked me if I worked there and my heart quietly broke and I lied to him and said yes and asked him if I can get him anything.

“No,” he replied, raising an eyebrow thinking about it. “I don’t need anything.”

That’s how I want to see things when my life comes to a close one day. I don’t want to need anything because I will be content with my life.

He was a great man. I don’t know what made me think of this, be it Veterans Day coming up, but I just wanted to tell somebody that I don’t think people like him exist anymore..  maybe I just wanted to brag on my Pawpaw a moment (if nobody has a problem with that, but if so, I don't care) - but sadly, I seriously don’t think they make people like him anymore.

People take for granted what they have and want what they don’t need. We’re all guilty of it. We all expect too much without giving the same in return.

I hope we can all one day say, “I don’t need anything.”  Not because we have it all - but because we have what we need. A life abundant with love, commitments fulfilled,  and content with our memories.

Arnold Wesley McSwain

1918 - 2015

I hope you all have a great week, and thank you to all of our Veterans for their service.

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