american flag

remembering my grandpa dale on the fourth anniversary of his passing.

I had never seen an American flag folded into a triangular shape, unfolded, then folded again. Apparently, it’s traditional with veteran memorial services. But then again, I had never been to one of those. A flag now sits on a shelf in my mom’s closet. We want to find a way to display it one day once she eventually remodels the house.

I also did not know much about an American flag's texture. I had seen American flags in school and hung in front of houses during federal holidays. Touching the starchy, hard material was, ironically, foreign to me. I suppose I expected it to feel softer since I always imagine flags effortlessly waving in the breeze. I never really felt connected to the concept that the American flag could represent a whole country populated by people from so many varying backgrounds and walks of life. And, there it was, representing a person. A symbol I never necessarily associated with my grandpa, was now the central piece of him at his memorial service.

Dale Christensen was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on December 24, 1947. He was the oldest of ten children, all of whom made the trek to Los Angeles when Dale was ten years old. Minnesota was far too cold and California seemed flourishing with warm air and opportunity.

Dale grew up in a Catholic family. His father was kind, but his mother, he used to say matter-of-factly, was the devil. She screamed often, exploding with anger and resentment. Dale rarely spent too much time reminiscing on her, choosing instead to make jokes to divert from the topic. When he turned 18, he decided to enlist in the navy, heading straight to the Vietnam War. To him, it felt like his only option to leave home. It wasn’t so much a call to serve, but an escape route out.

Dale (L) and his navy buddies.

It was three years of service, a period he never spoke about too much, either. He always loved his “buddies,” friends on the ship who he later kept up with on Facebook. Beyond this, a couple of stories about being in the middle of the ocean in “who knows what country,” playing cards and waiting to be told what to do. “It was a war nobody was proud of,” he often remarked. I think he felt that way, too.

Once he arrived back in Los Angeles, he met Jane Bernstein. She was adopted, with dark, long hair and olive-toned skin. Dale’s parents never liked her, she was “too different for them, I think,” my mom said. Jane and Dale had my mom when he was 22 years old, a year after he returned from war. They had her out of wedlock, something his Catholic parents also resented.

He tried to support the family, working lots of jobs in various industries. He was the perfect salesman: charismatic, exuberant, funny, and trustworthy. “He’s just one of those people that you’d be drawn to,” my mom said. And though he was successful professionally, personally, he was struggling. He and Jane soon split up. My mom only can remember one dinner at a pizza place with the two of them together when she was three years old.

Dale and Jane, sometime in the 1970s.

As a single guy, Dale partied. He was the “life of the party,” my uncle Matt often remarks. “It’s fun to see the guy jumping on tables and singing when you’re also in the mood to party, but when you’re ten and that person has to drive you home, it’s a not a fun vibe,” my mom recalls.

My grandpa used to tell me stories of his more rambunctious years. He told them not with pride, necessarily, but with humor and passion. Once on a road trip through Arizona, he fell asleep at the wheel, hungover from a night of drinking the night before. He ended up crashing into another car. The two men got out, immediately apologizing to each other: my grandpa for being asleep, and the other man for driving while high. They laughed, shook hands, and went on their way.

Whether it’s after a car accident on the side of a highway, or in later years, charming the grocery bagger at our local market, Dale always knew how to connect with people. “It was his superpower,” my mom often says.

He finally got sober in 2004, after going into the ICU for kidney failure. He still prayed throughout his life, somehow separating his suffocating Catholic childhood with his personal spirituality. After being discharged, he never drank again. Instead, he took care of his garden. He loved landscaping for his neighbors, scouring the aisles at gardening stores for interesting plants and pots. He loved Easter lilies and jasmine. Renting out a back house, he had few items to his name. His room was small, containing a bed, a desk, and a TV. But the back garden was flourishing with colorful flowers and vines, with a flowing fountain in the center. He spent all of his time outside, immersed in his own Garden of Eden. He would plant his chair in a spot outside where he could see the TV inside to watch football, preferably his team, the Raiders.

We used to bring him flowers to his VA hospital room when he got sick again in 2019, but there was barely any natural light. And during the pandemic, when we weren’t able to visit, we called to hear his gravely voice and booming laughter. In one of his last lucid days, we took him to IHOP to get him his favorite, a strawberry milkshake. He exclaimed “fuck yeah,” when I told him Joe Biden won the election. He told me that Trump wasn’t a patriot, but rather, “a stain on our country.” These days, I hear my grandpa in my head when I read the news. For a veteran, Dale was never outwardly patriotic. But then again, he was never outwardly religious, either. But he was both, in his own way. Extracting the pieces of his life that served him, reveling in the opportunity to have lived them, and saying “fuck it” to the rest, was kind of his MO.

Dale and his girls.

On the day my grandpa passed, my mom and I sat on a bench near our house. The bench is situated on a hilltop, overlooking the ocean. At sunset that night, three military planes flew over the ocean in unity. And, the Raiders won their game that day, with a last-minute Hail Mary pass.

I hear him in the songs he loved and hear his laugh echo when I watch something I know he’d find hilarious. My mom and dad both have their own finely tuned impersonations of him, but sometimes, my mom just emanates his energy in a way that makes me smile. I reach for his presence and sometimes, I can’t feel it. But I relish every moment his intense energy still comes through to me. He always reminded me that the only thing I can count on in life is change. So when everything feels like it’s falling apart, his saying has become my mantra.

At his memorial, my mom, dad, sister, and I sat on wide stone benches along with our mom’s extended family. It was February 2021 in Los Angeles, sunny but windy. It was an outdoor service, but we still wore masks due to COVID. I couldn’t help but look around at the people whose faces I recognized only through referencing their Facebook pages. They have grandpa’s straight, white smile and his piercing eyes. Technically, we share DNA, but we had not seen many of them for a long time. Dale never maintained a close relationship with them, partially due to escaping his family at a young age. When they asked us if we were planning on adding a cross to his grave marker, we replied that we would be including a heart, instead. Those piercing blue eyes narrowed in disapproval. I smiled at the thought of my grandpa being amused by somehow disappointing them even after he was gone.

A portrait of my grandfather was propped up on a table staring into the distance, in front of the crowd of his nine brothers and sisters, their families, and us. He’s no more than 22 years old, dressed in a white button-up with a skinny black tie with his perfect teeth and blue eyes. Next to that portrait, a photo of him on his 70th birthday, foregoing an open smile, opting to cover his last-standing teeth, staring right into the lens with those still-blue eyes.

A man and woman in navy uniforms commanded our attention to the front. Clasping the corners of the flag, a choreography ensued: they stepped forward and back as their hands unfold the flag in rhythm from its perfect triangle. Then, they refold it again, carefully lining up the edges. A salute from one, and then a salute from the other. The man approached my mom, handing her the flag.

After his memorial, I researched why the flag is folded into a triangular shape. I learned that each fold of the American flag represents a different symbol. The first fold of the flag symbolizes life. The second fold of the flag is a symbol of belief in eternal life. Fold number three is made to honor and remember veterans who have departed our ranks and those who gave a portion of their lives to the defense and betterment of America. So on and so forth, for all of the different folds.

Like the texture of an American flag, my grandpa could be gruff at times. He was patriotic and politically disillusioned, spiritual and but not religious, an addict and then sober, family oriented with us, yet desperate to escape his own family. He was complex and flawed, much like the people that the flag represents. Now, when I see a flag waving in the breeze, I think of my grandpa. I like to wave back.