For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
Then I grabbed the edge of a nearby seat.
“No,” I said. “That’s impossible.”
“I know how this sounds.”
“Your grandfather was declared missing in action in 1968. His aircraft disappeared. Nobody ever found him.”
“I understand.”
“He would be eighty years old now.”
“Eighty-one,” the young man corrected softly. “And he’s alive.”
I began to tremble.
The young man introduced himself as Daniel. He told me that Thomas had survived the crash, been captured, and eventually returned to the United States in 1973.
He had come home.
He had lived.
He had married a nurse named Margaret, raised children, and become a grandfather.
For more than fifty years, the man I had mourned had been living another life.
I looked at Daniel, desperately searching his face for some sign that this was an elaborate misunderstanding.
“Does he know who I am?”
Daniel nodded.
“He never forgot you.”
