This little face at the bottom of this page.  My precious son, was angry at me because I wasn’t ready to play a card game yet.  A card game that his Grandpa, my Dad,  had taught him.  It was called “War” and involved two players.  The cards divided.  Each person putting their card down one at a time, comparing it to the other person’s.  “War” began when the two cards were the same.  Then there was a challenge, to put 3 more cards down and a final card.  The person with the higher scoring card won.  Winner take all.

My Dad taught me this game when I was a child. Intended to ease the boredom of our long train trips up and down the western coast of the United States.  We took many trips from southern California up to North Bend, Washington, to visit his brother.  We always took the train.

I spent many hours on a train, watching scenery and lives past by me, playing “War.”  It was a game to occupy my mind.  One that didn’t involve thinking.

Now that man, my Dad, the man who taught me that game, is gone.  This picture was taken in 2016 a couple weeks after my Dad passed away.  The sorrow is evident on my son’s face as well.  He needed me to play that game with him, and right after I took this picture I played it with him.

Ironically the cards that we used belonged to my sister-in-law’s fiance.  What we didn’t know was that this fiance would pass away the next year, 2017.  Both the game and the borrowed cards, were offered to us by men that would both die within a year of one another.

Both of these men were beloved by those whom they belonged to. Both men were cremated.  Their ashes residing in different places.  Both of these men had such fragile hearts. Hearts that just were not designed for the long and perilous journey of life, and it was their hearts which ultimately felled them both.

But what both of their hearts did, and did well, was love.  Figuratively, in that sense, their hearts were strong and healthy and pure.

So the card game continues….