On May 17th, 1920, my grandfather was born.

On May 17th, 2003, I graduated from college.

My grandfather was gone by then ~ he’d left us the December before.

My family is really good with names and numbers.  Not necessarily math.  But dates, times ~ coincidences.  We remember things.  My dad knows more sports minutiae than any one person I’ve ever met.  I have a knack for birthdays.  My mother and my aunt ~ wickedly good memories.  They know every address for every home they have ever lived in, including the postal codes.  And that’s really nothing compared to everything else they have stored in their brains.

Even if I wanted to forget significant dates, I can’t.  For me, May 17th will always be the day I graduated from college on my grandfather’s birthday, right after he died.  I guess it sounds morbid, but for me, it’s not.  It’s always a chance to remember my grandfather ~ a gentle man who used to read while listening to classical music, and watch billiards on television.  A man who took my brother and I to the local library in the British village he and my Granny lived in, and with us propped in his lap, read about dinosaurs from one of our books.  He taught me the intricacies of the game of cricket, and listened as I told him all about my semester in Rome.  He built model ships, and spent hours bird-watching.

I miss him ~ I wish I’d had more time with him.  And I wish I had something more to talk about today, but really, that’s what is on my mind.  Every time I saw the date, every time I had to write it down ~ I thought about how May 17th reminds of my grandfather, and of college.  And really, that’s not too bad, in the whole scheme of things.