Remembering My Grandpa with a Poem

                                             Remembering My Grandpa today with a Poem

Today is my grandpa Max's birthday and while he died many years ago now, he is still an important piece of my heart and my life and I miss him.  This summer I wrote a poem about one of his experiences during World War II and it was published this Fall by Origami Press in their Best of Kindness Anthology 2020.  The poem, "A Silent Interaction" earned an honorable mention placing as one of the top 6 poems published out of 700 poems submitted. I'm so proud of this poem and so proud to be the granddaughter of Max J Kozy. I hope you enjoy the poem.

      A Silent Interaction by Laura Kozy Lanik

My grandpa told me about a man he met 

during World War II

a man who spoke a different language

who practiced a different religion

who lived in a concentration camp

until it was liberated by American soldiers.

My grandpa told me this man changed his life

and in these last 50 years 

not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about him

even though he never knew his name

he never forgot him.

My grandpa told me he started smoking 

when he enlisted in the Army Airforce

the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed.

He put his army-issued cigarettes 

in his shirt pocket and carried them everywhere.

My grandpa told me towards the end of the war

in April 1945 he walked through a

liberated concentration camp in Germany,

he couldn't remember which one,

Where he noticed an emaciated man 

lying on the cold, hard ground

too weak to get up and 

walk out of camp with the others. 

This man reached out his hand

and my grandfather gave him the cigarette

he was smoking.

My grandpa told me he helped the man

smoke the cigarette, 

he held it to his mouth

and he puffed once, then twice.

The man smiled and my grandpa smiled too,

His dull eyes lit up with a spark

before he passed from this world into the next.

My grandpa told me of the silent interaction

between two men at the end of the war 

and I never forgot this simple act of kindness and 

how it created a ripple that has lasted for generations.

-Laura Kozy Lanik