This is family business....

I spent a chunk of Memorial Day at my aunt (on my father's side) house. She lives in the house that she and my dad grew up in, on main street in a small town in central new jersey. My grandfather was a tailor, he owned a small tailor shop on the front of the building.

There's a picture on the wall of her living room that my parents gave my gradfather back when he was alive, of he and his wife. The picture is from my parent's wedding. I've seen it a hundred times, and I never really noticed it. But for some reason we started talking about it.

I learned a few things I didn't know about my grandfather, who I'm named after and who died a few months after I was born.

- He was born in 1896
- He lived to the age of 84 (so maybe there are some "good genes" in my family after all)
- He was quite the snappy dresser (then again, he was a tailor, so I guess he kind of had to be....)
- He was an occasional smoker - one cigarette a night, and a cigar on Sunday (now I don't feel so bad about my occasional cigars)

Kind of makes me wish he had lived long enough for me to know him.

I've struggled a lot with religion in the last few years, and I find myself wondering about the whole afterlife thing. But the idea that there is something beyond this earth - a chance for us to meet those who have gone before us, who we never got to meet on the earth - is certainly appealing.