if my memory serves me right

My grandfather was in the United States Military, an engineer.
Sometimes I think I am crazy. I feel waves of his presence near people who never even met him; I choke up when thinking about the awkward workings of German grammar, and how I may have understood them much better, if he had been able to explain them.
I am me, I am present, but sometimes, a piece of me dwells in the past.
I skip back, coming up on five years. It is truly amazing how fast time can shimmy by on days when it feels like I have just left his hospice room, just said my last goodbye.
The day that he died, my father and I had planned to go to visit him after I was done with school, but at nine something in the morning, in the middle of my English class, I was taken to the upper school office, and I knew—I knew before I saw my parents faces, and I kept my cool. I think the last time I saw my grandfather was in the hospice, while he was asleep, a few days prior. And it is funny, because I vividly replay so many events, so many things, but it is impossible for me to truly remember my last moments with him, when he was alive. Quite cruel, actually. I remember fantastically our last fight, and my moments with him in the room after he had died—but our last interaction has faded, along with the calm patient man I loved, my grandfather.

The Name Paradox

My name is Hermine. For Americans/English speakers, it's pronounced "her-mean"; for Germans/German speakers, it's pronounced "her-mean-a". It's amazing what that last syllable can do for one. When I hear the German pronunciation, suddenly my past, that is, my high school run-ins, my elementary school taunts, all of it is suddenly gone, reinvented. I am "her-mean-a" and the world is my play dough playground.
I moved to Germany some months ago. Began my new life living in a shared apartment with my boyfriend in the town of Heidelberg. My new identity: medical student struggling with her first semester, funny, likable and somewhat popular, very able, confident, determined, constant.
What my new acquaintances lack, however, is the ability to see through to the inner me, the me which was made fun of in school for years, and the me who started my own life inside my life and led a dual existence, in being at school and being made fun of, and in leading an international project aiming to make the lives of many orphans in Israel better. A life within a life, in the same city. The daily parody of being wanted, needed, and ridiculed.
But now I'm somewhere else. I'm completely away. I cross no paths with those whom I was active with before. I am simply severed, and it is fantastic.
My heart jumps a little every time I hear the German pronunciation of my name, because each time, I know that my name will be said correctly, and not be made fun of. I know that someone knows me here and knows what I stand for here and hasn't the slightest clue of the skeletons I've buried.
I am living in my own parody. The parody of my name, a given symbol of my being. Hermine or Hermine, however you swing it.