In Memory of My Grandfather

Today, May 18, it has been twenty years since my Grandpa Wilkinson passed away in 1989. I was five years old at the time, and I still vaguely remember my dad getting me out of bed in the morning when it was still dark to tell me about it. I had known from my parents’ conversations that Grandpa was sick (he had lung cancer), and news of his death did not affect me that much then. I was only five, and I barely knew my grandfather; yet from my father’s sad demeanor I knew something very serious had happened, and I still remember that moment.
I was probably with my grandfather in person only twice. There are pictures of him holding me at the beach when he visited when I was just a toddler. I vaguely remember him reading books to me on the couch and laughing and having a lot of fun. My dad told me once (and it’s hard to know if I remember this directly or not) that he made up a game in which we would see who could collapse and hit the couch faster.
What I know of my grandfather, Reginald Norbert Wilkinson, I know from what my father has told me about him. He was born on June 6, 1921, in Hollywood, Maryland, on a farm in the very same county the Wilkinson family had lived in since they arrived in America from England in the 1600s. He had only one brother but nine sisters. I believe he attended a military high school in Washington, D.C.
My grandfather entered World War II as a fighter pilot and fought in the Pacific theater. I know that he shot down one Japanese plane, but of his other travels or exploits neither I nor my father know much. It was on his 23rd birthday that his comrades far away in Europe stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in 1944.
He married my grandmother (who is still living) in 1944 (I believe he actually took her up in an airplane when they were courting or recently married), and they had one child who died in infancy before having three surviving children – my Aunt Anne, my Uncle John, and my father. My grandmother is from Washington, D.C., and the family lived in nearby Arlington. My grandfather worked in construction, and he helped on the construction of RFK Stadium in the late 1960s.
Grandpa was an alcoholic, and he and my grandmother separated in 1971. But for all his flaws, my father recalls his father as a very kind and moral man. He loved his children and had a good sense of humor. He was old-fashioned; in fact, my grandmother once said that he was “born a century too late”. I may have inherited my love of classical music from him, because my dad said that Grandpa liked to listen to it occasionally. One thing he hated was foul language, and he had no problem asking (perhaps not so politely) anyone using it to stop.
Grandpa Wilkinson would have been 88 this year, and I would love for him to be still alive today. I would have written him letters (like I have for many years with my other grandfather), asked him about growing up and about the war, along with many other things I was never able to do with him. I would also have shared the gospel with him as the Lord gave me opportunity; he died before any of our family came to Christ, and I do not know where he stood with the Lord. However, I admire and love my late grandfather, and today, two full decades after he left this earth too soon at the age of 67, I dedicate this short and simple article to him in his memory.