To What Do We Owe the Dead?
A first visit, sixty-one years late
What do we owe the dead?
What is our responsibility to those who came before us? The ones who began or carried forward our family line. The ones who worked, endured, sacrificed, and loved in ways that made our lives possible.
I believe we owe them three things.
First, remembrance. We tell their stories. We speak their names. We teach our children and grandchildren that they are part of something older than themselves. There will be light and shadow in every family story. We learn from both.
Second, honor. If they lived well, we carry that forward. If they fell short, we improve upon what we were given. We mend what was broken. We build something steadier from what we inherited. There is a quiet redemption in that.
Third, forgiveness. Beyond anger and disappointment, we try to see them as they once were. Children. Before life hardened them. Before fear or failure reshaped them. Forgiveness is not approval. It is the decision to let mercy land somewhere.
Sometimes that is the only peace available to us.
I never knew my paternal grandfather. He died eight years before I was born.
John Joseph Richard Weiss was a Colonel in the Army Air Corps, later the United States Air Force. He served in both world wars. After retiring from military service in his fifties, he enrolled in law school and became the oldest graduate in his class.
He passed the Florida Bar and opened a small office. A new chapter had begun.
Then he started dropping his water glass.
There were tests. A brain tumor. A rapid decline. He never practiced law. He was buried at the Presidio in San Francisco. I assume it was his wish. Perhaps he once served there. I never asked enough questions.
When my parents were alive, we often visited my maternal grandparents’ gravestone at Madronia Cemetery in Saratoga. We lived nearby. It was easy to bring flowers. But for reasons I cannot explain, we never made the drive north to visit my paternal grandfather’s grave.
When my grandmother died, I was away at university during my senior year. It was finals week. My parents waited to tell me until after graduation so I would not be distracted. There was no funeral for me to attend. I had never set foot in the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio.
Until last weekend.
My wife and I flew to Northern California to attend the twentieth anniversary Fallen Officer Foundation Ball. I am a founding member of this organization, which supports first responders and their families in times of need.
Since we were already there, we extended our stay so I could finally visit my grandfather’s grave.
San Francisco has always meant something to me. My father worked for many years as an Administrative Law Judge for the California Public Utilities Commission. During my university days I sometimes visited him in his office. Later, my wife and I made many trips to the city together.
But this visit was different.
When we parked at the Presidio and stepped out, the air felt softened, as if the fog had taken the edge off the morning. The lawn rolled gently downward toward rows of white marble. Tall cypress and eucalyptus stood along the margins, their branches leaning inland from years of coastal wind. The fog drifted sideways through the trees and across the grass. In the diffused light, the stones held a steady glow. The place was orderly and quiet.
When we reached my grandfather’s headstone, something rose in me.
Sixty-one years had passed before I came. I stood before the name of a man I never met, yet whose life shaped my own. He raised my father into the man who later raised me. I have tried to do the same for my son, who now serves in the military.
After a time, my wife walked back toward the car, leaving me alone on the hill.
A cool breeze moved through the trees. I felt a stillness settle in my chest. Not dramatic. Not overwhelming. Just steady. I thought of my father, gone since 2004. I imagined him standing beside his own father, watching me there.
Before I left, I gave a small salute.
The rest of our trip included dinner with a childhood friend and his wife, walks through Japantown, and hours of street photography. But the visit to the cemetery stayed with me.
I miss my father. I regret never meeting my grandfather. Yet standing there, I felt something close to gratitude. Gratitude that I had finally come. That I had remembered.
This is what we owe the dead. We remember them. We honor them. When necessary, we forgive them.
And we continue to love them.
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Oh this is beyond beautiful! I particularly love this inspirational, poignant line:
"Forgiveness is not approval. It is the decision to let mercy land somewhere.
Sometimes that is the only peace available to us."
Wow. Just - wow. Magnificent writing, thank you.
Thanks John, great writing and spot on timing for me. Like all your writing the message cuts through and strikes chords that resonate deeply. It would have been my Dad’s 90th birthday today. He died over 3 years ago. A lifelong farmer who taught by his example in so many ways. As farmers we have such a direct connection to the previous generations and in so many ways we have the opportunity to remember and honour them. But we need to pause and reflect and acknowledge much of what is around us that is so easy to take for granted. Today’s trend of style over substance makes it so easy for us to claim credit for what we’ve done, when the real hard work and sacrifice was done by our forefathers. We live on a farm my great grandfather bought in 1912, and after a bit of a fortuitous roundabout journey, my wife and I moved onto this farm over 30 years ago when we got married, to make a home, a farm and a family. Everything needed fixing and updating, but we had time and passion and it was ours. And now this is the home and farm our family has grown up on and continue to farm. I never knew my great grandfather, but his hard work and enterprise all those years ago created the opportunity for me to get started in farming. At times now when I question why we are still working so hard I think that somehow we are honouring and remembering the work of my farming family founders and paying it forward to future generations in some unknowable way.