Once upon a time, there was a young man, born in Seattle, Washington, raised in the dense forests of western Sweden, who dreamed of playing the clarinet like Benny Goodman.

The End.

* * *

The young man in the above story was my father. He died, quite suddenly, almost exactly a decade ago, at the age of 67. What I know of his life resembles that story: fractional, incomplete, constructed from random photographs and half-remembered tales, a jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing.

* * *

This past Sunday afternoon, my father-in-law Calvin passed away. He was 81.

Like my father, my wife's father was born in the 1920s in the Pacific Northwest (Butte, Montana) to immigrant parents (China). Like Sigurd, Calvin came of age during World War II, and served in the US military. Like Sigurd, after his enlisted days were over, Calvin worked for the US Military as a civilian for most of his career.

And like Sigurd, Calvin left us with many untold stories. For example, we know that Calvin served as an mechanic servicing airplanes during the "Flying the Hump" airlift in the Burma-China-India theater. What was that like? We can only guess. Calvin didn't care to talk about it much.

* * *

How wonderful would it have been to read a blog entry alongside that photograph of my dad on that boat? I would love to know what book my dad was reading, what he thought of the book, who those other soldiers were, where they were all going, and above all, how they felt about the whole experience. Sadly, there were no blogs in 1945.

This is why I blog. I want to record my stories as they happen, so that when I'm gone, my children and grandchildren won't have to feel bad that they never got around to asking me to tell my story. I want them to inherit a jigsaw puzzle with a lot more pieces.

* * *

Last evening, the five-year-old granddaughter of Sigurd and Calvin had her first piano recital. She had been looking forward to it for weeks.

She adores music. She loves to play around with songs, to twist the words and notes around. When she's satisfied she knows one of her piano assignments well enough, she'll transpose it, taking a song in a major key, and turning it into a song in a minor key. Lately, she has been singing the chorus to that Hawaiian Christmas song as "Mele KaliKenMacha is a famous man".

I'm glad that the news of her grandfather's passing went almost completely over her head. The recital was probably the most exciting event in her young life so far; I am grateful that not even the saddest of news could ruin it for her. Let the adults grieve the untold tales; let the kids go build the stories of the future.

My daughter was by far the youngest and smallest student in the show, but she stood out. While most of the other kids three or four years older than her struggled just to play the right notes, my little five-year-old seemed to be working on another level. She wants to get the notes to feel right, to sound smooth and polished, with just the right volume at just the right spots.

When I told her afterwards that I didn't think she could play her two songs any more perfectly, she disagreed. "My dynamics on the second song could have been better," she said.

I smiled. That kind of passion for music hasn't been seen in my family since once upon a time, when a young man dreamed of playing the clarinet like Benny Goodman. But that's a whole nother story. Someday, perhaps, I'll get around to telling it to you.