GrandPa passed away.

Surprising, you're with someone, a night passes and then he is gone. I know that it is certainly for the best, he could not walk anymore and his mind was slipping, but still, it fells empty.

GranPa was one of the more exceptionnal man I ever knew. Third son of a farmer of French britanny, under the care of a step-mother who had everything of Cinderella's, he could not expect much from his family (his those days and these kind of old farmer family, the eldest son got the farm, the second got the father complementary job - in this case, brewer, - and beyond that, you were on your own).

He was the first in his canton (county in France) to pass his Bac (SAT) and the first of his departement to get a doctorate in Law, although he could only go to his college supervised works and exams, since he had to earn his living. After this, he went on to the BNCI (now the BNP-Paribas group), where he occupied various functions, from bottom to top, although his most noteworthy was at the (I don't remember the exact name) "financing of inovative ideas", where he had to determine whether a new idea or product was bankable and worthy of a financing (among the ones he considered so where the "Gîtes de France" and casting of the net from the rear for the fishing boats). Thrice he dodged death during WW2, twice by bombs and once by illness, he often mention during his birthdays "another one!".

After a fine carrer in the bank, a wedding (he and my GrandMa have married for 73 year, until his demise) and four children, he retired in 1974 and was enjoying a happy retirement, fishing and taking care of his grandchildren, darkened only in recent year by the chronic diminishement of old age.

Damn, I still can't believe he is gone. I hope GrandMa will be fine.

One thing I will always remember of my GrandPa: every 14th of July (French national feast) he would Watch the military parade and say "Look! Here are your taxes passing by!"