In a few weeks, I will leave North Carolina for a fifteen-month long deployment to Iraq with the U.S. Army's XVIII Airborne Corps. My family and I learned of the impending separation over a year ago. We live with the dread that precedes a long separation from loved ones. My two small sons know that we will miss one another, but can understand neither war, nor what fifteen months away from home truly means.

My grandfather understands war and loneliness quite well. He spent years fighting the Japanese Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II, aboard the USS Nassau, an escort carrier that earned five battle stars at sea. He will be eighty-seven years old on September fifteenth. After a stroke about six years ago, his kind Hindu doctor told the the family that he would certainly never walk or speak again. Grandpa has always been a fighter, so when he whispered from the hospital bed, "I love you, Sandy" to his daughter, his doctor was the first to admit that a miracle had taken place. Grandpa steadily recovered much of the function of his legs and his voice over time. He never quit trying, and looked better each time I saw him afterward.

My Aunt Sandy, Mom's little sister who is barely older than I, brought Grandpa out to my house to visit last weekend. We live about an hour's drive apart, enough time in a car to represent considerable discomfort for him. He said he really wanted to see me before I deploy to Iraq, and had never been to my home before. I only met my Grandfather a short time ago, but that is a longer story for another time.

Aunt Sandy drove into our driveway with Grandpa in the front passenger seat and his wife, Ernestine, in the back. I walked out to meet the car, glad to see them again, especially Grandpa. I opened his passenger-side door and tried hard not to let my face betray my emotions. He looked much more frail than the last time I had seen him months before, almost ethereal and weightless. He looked at me and smiled. Then he laughed and reached out for a hug. I noticed that his right hand was clenched loosely into a fist. I learned later that he had lost the use of the hand suddenly as a delayed result of the stroke years ago. His doctor, familiar with Grandpa's spirit, nevertheless told Grandpa that the hand would never function again without surgery. For a younger man, the surgery would be simple and effective. No doctor would operate on Grandpa, however, due to his advanced age and weakened state. Despite all this,

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