A picture of my grandparents landed on my desk a few months ago. I don't remember setting it up though obviously I must have. I'm sure I meant it to be temporary but here it resides still.

I keep finding myself looking at this picture when I'm thinking. My eyes go to grandpa's face. I feel calmer imagining he were here. Grandpa wasn't particularly gentle with older kids or adults but he was great with babies. My mother said it slightly peeved all the young mothers when he'd command them to hand over their fussy baby and within minutes he'd have the baby sleeping on his chest. I think that my cousins and I, even as infants, immediately sensed we were in the arms of strength and certitude and there was no point in fussing anymore. (Or maybe his chest was at the perfect angle to burp a baby. Who knows. The point is this father of seven and grandfather to many knew how to shush a fusser.)

I like this picture particularly because my grandma liked it. She chose this picture of them after my grandpa died, had it framed, and set it on her dresser. Grandpa does look particularly happy. I wonder what was said just before the photo was snapped.

Grandpa was the oldest of nine children, the son of an angry man who drove all his children from his home at the youngest possible age. Yet all nine went on to be successful. Most of them attended college; all married and had so many children that my dad--the oldest son of the oldest son--had 50 first cousins. Who all got together often without the need for reunions as an excuse.

Grandpa did a certificate at our state's well-known Agriculture college. He became a milk tester and, because travel was so difficult in those days, usually spent the night with the family whose milk he was testing. Not quite a girl in every port, but almost. He married the girl who had dated all his brothers and then decided he was the pick of the litter (he always smiled when she told that story).

She was pregnant with their second child when he was shipped overseas. He landed at Normandy but was in a group that came several days after the main assault. They both said they knew this had saved his life but this was the only thing I ever heard him say about the landing. He was a scout for his unit (they liked farm boys who knew how to move through the countryside) and he spent weeks at a time behind enemy lines scouting their movements. He had a jeep and a motorcycle with a sidecar and a few men under his command. I believe he got them all the way through France without losing any of them.

When he got home his children did not recognize him and cried when he tried to hug them. He bought land with his army pay. As soon as he could he got rid of the horses his dad had farmed with and bought tractors. I always thought it odd that a man who didn't like horses was a dairyman. Did he like cows? Or were they just a commodity? My fondest memories of him are riding along with him in the cab of a tractor, not hanging out in the dairy barn. But he knew his cows. One well-told family story is that one night the cows got out and the state police called and called the house number but he slept right through the ringing phone. Then, a cow wearing a bell walked under his bedroom window and he sat right up and yelled for everyone to get dressed to get the cows back in.

Grandma and grandpa had seven kids and the farm became the family hub. From my house I could see the houses of an aunt and uncle, two sets of grandparents, one great-grandma, and one great-great aunt. I didn't understand the idea of paid babysitters.

Grandpa was not a talker. As stoic as any man of his generation could be. But he had a great laugh when truly entertained. He liked it when I rode with him in the cab of the combine for endless laps around endless fields. I'd ask some questions but I didn't pester.

When I was 4 and my mother went back to teaching so that she and my older siblings were all at school I spent the days with my dad. His first stop of the day was a walk across the pasture to his dad's house. We went in quietly, so as not to disturb grandma who liked to sleep late, and had coffee. Dad got me a mug and set me at the table next to his dad and himself while they talked over the day. He'd fill it with one fourth coffee and three fourths milk and I'd listen intently to the men, swinging my legs under the table, feeling very much a part of things. Sometimes grandma would come out in her bathrobe and offer me a doughnut to dip in my coffee with a sleepy smile, pausing a moment, resting her hand on my curls.

At my father's funeral when I, at age 13, began to sob, grandpa reached forward and placed his hand on my shoulder. And left it there for me to hold.