William Frederick Dudson

 

 

I've spent my day searching through cemeteries for  my grandfather’s gravesite because that's what you do on Valentine’s Day when you are me and ever so slightly odd.  I know very little about my grandfather. He died before I was born and my father, who was only 10 at the time, has rarely spoken of him.

 His photo sits on my dressing table and I stare at it often, trying to get a sense of just who he was. The essence of that young man in his military uniform posing for the camera. All I've ever gotten back is a face that looks uncannily like my brother's. And that freaks me out at 7am each morning. But it also makes me smile because he's smiling in just the same goofy way my brother does even though they have never met.

Little is written on his headstone.  Only his name - William Frederick Dudson - and that he was loved and loved my grandmother. A brief message etched in stone.  No mention of the ten children, thirty grandchildren and numerous others walking this earth, doing their thing, making their mark.  Only the why of it all. 

That he loved.

 And here I was standing there amongst stone crosses and statues of the Virgin Mary trying to understand who the man in that photo was and what his name, above me on my family tree means.

Only because he loved.

 This man, who breathed his last breath 9 years before I drew my first, his essence, when everything else was stripped away was summed up by those that knew him in two words.

HE LOVED.

And because he did my father was born and my brothers and sister are here.

My children exist.

And I am here.

Reading his love letter to me. To us.

On Valentine’s Day.

How amazing is that!

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