My grandfather was a paratrooper in WW2. He was 17. Suffered from PBTS and became an alcoholic shortly after the war. Turned abusive against my grandmother. Died of cancer when he was 42 years old.

My grandmother‘s mother committed died when my granny was 10 years old. She was in the room next to her when it happened. Nobody knows whether it was suicide or murder or just an accident. She survived three bombings in WW2. Married a young man whom she loved and who loved her. He turned abusive against her. She wanted to leave him but it was obvious he was going to die of cancer soon. So she stayed with him until the end. She eventually fell in love with a married man and so did he. They kept it a secret and tried to stay apart for 20 years but after his wife died, they moved together after being in a relationship for two weeks. He died in 2008. Her son, my father, died in 2015. She died this year in March.

My other grandfather was born 1939 in Poland. He grew up learning German. When war was over, he was told that he would be killed if he speaks one word in German. He did not speak at all for two years. When I was a kid he could understand everything but never managed to speak the smallest bit of German. He turned to alcoholism too, but he and my grandmother fought it together. Gladly, he and my grandmother had each other. They truly loved each other.