in memory of my grandfather, Thomas Manning Mitchell,
Sargent, Company M, 156th Infantry, A.E.F.; France 1917-8.
i'm wearing his service ring as i type this. i inherited
his name but not much else...he was killed in an accident shortly before i was born in 1949.

https://poets.org/poem/spires-oxford

"it's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."
lewis carroll, Alice in Wonderland