Happy birthday to my grandfather, Tadeusz, who would have been 100 years old today, had he not exited this veil of tears back in the 80s, when I was a little boy.

I loved going to stay with him, in his little flat by the motorway, and I remember him fondly, chain-smoking cigarettes and thinking of the past, sometimes pausing to sit me on his lap, where'd he'd take delight in excitedly slapping my cheeks with both hands until they were red.

Here he is with his great grandson Hercules, who he never met, and lives on through.

"I'm so glad he's my ancestor," Hercules told me, excitedly, after listening to tales of his great grandfather's adventures.

Born in Poland, he lived "a good and happy life," until World War II broke out, and his home was invaded by the Soviets, and he was taken from his family, never to see them again. He was later taken to a forced labor camp in Germany, then escaped, or was liberated, no one's quite sure... after that he found himself in France, then joined the Polish army, and drove a tank, and when the war was over, he found himself in the UK, just 23 years old and far from home, where he met and soon married my grandmother, Susan.

"I think I'm like him in some ways Dada," mused Hercules, bouncing up and down on a trampoline in his bedroom in Mexico. "I'd fight the enemies too. And I'd love to drive a tank. I think there's definitely some of him in me."

He's in me too. And because of everything he went through, we get to exist, right here, at peak of recorded human civilization, at this most auspicious juncture in the human story.

Thank you Grandfather Tadeusz. We love you.

Happy birthday.

🙏