Grandpa seems more tired than I had ever seen him. Lost and hurt perhaps. Nothing I could say. I had never lost someone I loved before. My life had been thankfully okay in that aspect. I knew grandpa would die sometime in the near future. I had a hard time picturing it as anything other than a generic bad feeling.
"The long and short of joining the Army is that it sucks. The training was hard but not hard enough to prevent people from dying. Violante sent me letters that keep my spirits up and full of love. Oh, the scent of her on them was burning sweet. I sent letters back with that were filled with fiery burning passion." He drank straight from the bottle seemingly having forgotten about the glass.
"We were one of the first units sent up north to defend our border in March 1846. It was a lot of marching, setting up camp, tearing down camp, and marching. Sometimes it would be my turn to have a watch. Those days were hard since you had to keep moving regardless. During one of those times, I had a dream with portents of the future but I didn't know that at the time." This time he sat there with sorrow in his eyes.
"We rode hard on the that late April day to prevent the further annexation of our lands. The Americans want it, and we weren't going to let them have it. I was in the first group that encountered them. I was de-horsed and fell to the ground. It quickly spirals into a man to man fight for me and a few others." He took a deep breath.
"That's where I died." He looked at me daring me to question him again.
"Or at least that is what my fellow soldiers thought. I woke up a few days later and was missing almost all my stuff. The bastards were worse than grave robbers. How could they leave a man behind? A living man! Worse, I had been stabbed through the eye."
"My right eye was gone." Pointing at his eye.
