When I recounted aspects of our son's passing on an extensive post on livfully.org (or online) called Remembering Kaelan Alexander Palmer Paton, I eventually thought of casting the story of his life as one of many in a family tree of my father Dale Palmer Sr. who made it through being on ship in World War 2.
If he hadn't gotten off the boat he were on in the Coast Guard for a few years, he wouldn't have met my mother Mary 'by chance' on a weekend leave.