In  the crowded, chilly restaurant, I sat across from an old curmudgeon last evening, talking about history and socialism.  I leaned closer, not to miss anything he said.  How many have the chance to hear the observations of someone who has lived through a Great Depression, a world war, at least three more wars, the Civil Rights movement, the invention of the computer and the rise and fall of two generations of politicians?  I didn’t want to miss a single world.

He’s my favorite old curmudgeon, my father-in-law, even though we have only a half-dozen things in common.  We both love his children and grandchildren.  We spent a lot of time together nursing his wife in her last illness.  We both like red wine, properly cooked sea food, and books — although he reads nonfiction in German, and I read European Crime Fiction, which shows the difference between us.  He reads to learn; I read to escape.  But we both read.

A  long pleasant time drifted by, between our order and the arrival of our food.  In that gap, the temperature in the restaurant dropped by 5 or more degrees and his thin, aging and increasingly frail frame began to shrink as well, away from the cold.  I cajoled him into letting me go to the car to get his jacket, and when I returned, he pulled it over his arms with grace and remained standing until I sat.  He apologized for needing me to run that errand; then sat back down again himself.  We continued talking over our food — scallops for him; salmon for me.  We raised our glasses to toast Joanna, his wife, who would order anything at all off any menu, as long as it was grilled salmon with asparagus.

A scant hour and a half after I arrived at his house, he was ready to go home, to rest, to sleep.  And to rise again today, to live his life, bravely, quietly, sometimes sternly, sometimes with the love light keenly shining from his knowing eyes.  I drove home in a quiet mood myself, thinking about curmudgeons and the children of curmudgeons, of whom he voiced his pride and pleasure this evening.  As I parked my car, it occurred to me that they might not know how much he loves them and how proud he is of both his children.  And so, here, in my own way, now I’ve told them.

My father-in-law turns 85 this month.  I’m praying that he sees his 86th birthday; but I’m also grateful that I’ve known him these five years.  Had I never met his son, I would never have met the father; and so I realize that I am indeed a very blessed woman.