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During the Hungarian Revolution, my Papa escaped through Russian lines to Austria with his terrified wife and two-year-old daughter. He’d lost his wife to cancer when she was 44. It would have been hard to be anything but serious when life was such a necklace of difficulties, with such pendants of tragedy.Katy Lemay/The Globe and Mail

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I am sure he was a serious man. He had to be. He'd survived the Holocaust, ripped off his yellow star and trusted his blond hair and his striking blue eyes to be sufficient disguise. During the Hungarian Revolution, he'd escaped through Russian lines to Austria with his terrified wife and two-year-old daughter. He'd lost his wife to cancer when she was 44. It would have been hard to be anything but serious when life was such a necklace of difficulties, with such pendants of tragedy.

But to me, my Papa was a goof. He defined himself proudly: "Eva," he would say, "I am a little bit crazy."

He made kitchen utensils out of construction waste. He parked vertically on snowbanks. (My sister and I had to decide if it was better to get out by climbing straight up or by tumbling straight down, but, as we'd already survived the running of three red lights and two near-misses with cyclists, we were just happy to be parked.)

Sleepovers meant Bugs Bunny mornings, with Papa laughing harder than both of us combined, and Paprikash Crumply for dinner, followed by ice cream topped with brandy. More accurately: brandy topped with ice cream.

In winter, we roasted chestnuts. Sparks would fly out of Papa's fireplace and land on his wood carvings, setting off the smoke alarm and sending him scurrying to douse his "masterpieces." His house was a clutter of paintings, ceramic sculptures and half-eaten bananas swarmed by happy fruit flies.

There was always music playing, usually opera. Papa hummed along, bobbing his head, bursting into unintelligible lyrics whenever he was inspired. His joy for life was contagious, and we caught it every time we were with him.

I don't remember exactly when I started to lose my Papa, or when he started to lose himself. After I moved away to college, I saw him every few months and noticed little change. He was simply getting older, his grey hair turning silver. He smelled exactly the same. When I hugged him, I'd taste brandy-laced ice cream and hear the Road Runner.

By the time he came to my graduation from Princeton University, his days as an engineer were over. But he was in top form. He looked at the gorgeous campus and announced: "I would like to be a professor here."

"Professor of what?" my father asked.

"Of love-making!"

By all accounts, Papa had been "quite the Casanova." Women were always attracted to him, but he was picky. His J-Date profile would have read: "Hello, I am George. I am looking for nice younger lady who is liking classical music and art, and is speaking Hungarian. No fat ankles please."

After my graduation, we took a family cruise. Papa lay under the Caribbean sun in his homemade bathing suit (strung together from tighty-whities and a paprika-stained kitchen cloth), his skin turning deep bronze. One day, strolling the ship's pool deck, my dad found Papa standing just inside the entrance to the men's restroom, naked.

"I think," said my dad, "that people can see you when the door opens." Papa looked down, as if to confirm he was naked.

"Okay," he said. He struck a noble pose. "Let them see the beautiful man!" My true Papa was still there.

My next stop was New York, where I worked in a lab run by a brilliant, demanding man. Lab life was full of highs and lows. At the lows, I'd run through Central Park or walk the crowded streets, trying to regain perspective. My love life was also tumultuous. I don't know if I had the reserves to register how Papa was doing. I talked to him occasionally, and he'd try to offer "words of wisdom." I don't think I was really listening.

Finally, I cut loose from New York and started medical school in Florida. While I was learning about the excruciatingly complex connections that neurons make, Papa's neurons were disconnecting. On the phone, after piecing together who I was, he would still say, "Eva, I am a little bit crazy." But his tone was different, and my laughter false.

When we were together, there would be uneasy pauses. Papa's eyes would have a faraway, frightened look as he searched for information that had disappeared. But he was trying to hold on: He'd write lists of dates, quiz himself on composers' names. The dates and names were telling him, "You're forgetting your life." And I was losing my Papa.

His mind lasted just long enough to know he'd become a great-grandfather. Blank-faced, he cradled my first child, Evelyn, when she was five weeks old. Slowly, he smiled, then broke into the loud laughter of sudden recognition. It made me laugh, too, or maybe cry. It was an expression of real joy, the kind I hadn't seen much in my Papa since the days of Bugs Bunny. I snuggled my head into his shoulder as we looked down at the tiny, squirming baby.

I've just had another baby, but Papa doesn't know it. The memories once housed in those tenuous neurons are entirely gone. But my babies will know about him. We won't let the man who forgot himself be forgotten. Not the Beautiful Man.

Eva Vertes George lives in Gainesville, Fla.

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