Tribute to Harry Gene Shaw

Today I would like to talk about Harry Gene Shaw, my grandfather, whom I and my mother never got to know. You see, my grandmother had my mom at an early age, and ended up having to marry the man to whom she had my mom with (Harry). Harry had to go to Vietnam, and when he got back, my grandmother left him, for another man. She got married to this other man when my mom was six. My mother remembers only glimpses, small memories of playing with her real father when she was about three years old, and from what she remembers, she was his life, and he loved her greatly. But her mother stopped him from seeing her. When my mother was fifteen, her mother's husband decided to adopt her, and they went to court. Harry showed up that day, and my mother saw just a small glimpse of him. He didn't want to give his daughter up, because he still loved her, and he wanted to be her dad. But my grandmother threatened him, whether with the threat of child-support, which he could not afford, we do not really know. But he was forced to give my mother up, and let the adoption take place. Needless to say, my mother has always harbored feelings saved specially for her birth father, whom she loved dearly, and she has tried to find him many times over through the years, without any results. She found pictures of him, but only of him and her mother holding her as an infant, and all but his hands and arms were cut out of the picture. At last she found three lone pictures of him, her mother, and her grandfather together. She looks so much like the man in those pictures, there is no doubt that he is the man she has searched for all those years. From there, my mom and dad did countless searches for Harry on the internet, finding countless amounts of men named Harry Gene Shaw. They called each and every one that matched the time-line of when he was in the service, and when he moved to Texas, but each time they called, they came up short, the families they called claiming to not know any Harry Gene Shaw's. My father has just decided to make a family tree for my great-grandmother for Christmas, something we've all wanted for years, but haven't had the resources to do until now. He has found many family members already, but the empty hole in the family where my mother's father should be remained, making the hole in my mother's heart where her father should have been even larger. Just yesterday, my dad had a major breakthrough in the search for my missing grandfather, but with that breakthrough came a heart-wrenching letdown:
Harry Gene Shaw died in 2006.
He was buried in Boise Idaho, in a veterans cemetery. His loss was a profound one, and has effected all of us, my mother especially. She never got to know her father. The only memories she has of him are ones she can't even prove were real. I think the one she holds closest to her heart, is one where she and Harry were playing with a toy rake in the den of the home we live in now, on the carpeting that was once very red, and very long, like grass (except grass isn't red, obviously). She remembers playing with his hair as well. It was blond, and curly. We all wish that we could have shared our lives with the missing father, and grandfather that we didn't get to know, and for my mom, she especially wishes that she could have shared her children, and couldn't have said, "look what I did", and gotten a reply from the man who helped create her. Something along the lines of, "You did well, and I am proud of you". I think my mom would do anything just to have told him one time before his death that she loved him, and she always has.

This blog is dedicated to Harry: we all love you, and hope you are watching over us now.
-Miss Eccentric.
P.S. Some of the things I have told you in this blog may not be true, because the information about Harry is very limited, but I think that I have stayed as close to the truth as possible with the information we do have.