Dear Nana and Pop-Pop,
Does he still sing to you? Those sweet, good old songs that would take a woman’s breath away today if a man sang them to her? Are your voices still as loud, soft, and sweet as I remembered? Are you both still invested in each other as ever? Do you two even know that I’m writing about you? Well, I hope you do.
One of my biggest hopes is that whenever I manage to fall in love, it’s the kind of love you two had and still have for each other. I remember how much you both worried about each other. Not the kind of worried that was built upon jealousy, but the kind of worry that was based upon compassion and concern (even though you probably both got jealous at some point in your lives, I’ve just never seen it). I watched how both of you would clench onto each other’s hands as you laughed along to the jokes that my sister and I made (which really weren’t all that funny).
Maybe I’ll never understand how much you both loved our family and even though all grandparents are seen as the most loving adults in our lives, I was more in love with how my Nana and Pop-Pop loved each other. Best Friends. Each other’s favorites. Your relationship with each other fell under these categories, and that’s what everyone wants in love right? Someone that can make them laugh until they can’t breathe? Some who can look out for you when you can’t look out for yourself?
When I think of an everlasting relationship, I don’t think of being lost and in love, I think of it being like you two. A part of me feels like you both got really lucky to find each other because not many people find someone they want to be with for almost their whole life. I don’t know if you knew how much I admired your relationship, probably because I never told you. But trust me, I did. The hardest thing that I ever had to do was watch you two separate for each other.
As Nana started to pass away and her memory became even more faint, I watched how you, my grandpa, began to fall apart. Watching the two people I love the most hurt that much, hurt me more than ever. Most of the time, I couldn’t even handle watching Nana get sick and refused to admit to everyone else that the less Nana talked, the more I realized what was happening. But all in all, the way that my grandpa broke over my grandma is the kind of brokenness you would want the man you love to feel over you.
The second I saw you die, Nana, I knew how much Pop-Pop loved you. I knew how hard it would be for him to go one every day without you, and I knew his life was completely different now, a different that I couldn’t even bear to watch. I could tell that this different was controlled by the greatest amount of agony, the kind of agony that doesn’t go away.
Pop-Pop missed you until the day he died Nan, and when he finally died, I knew apart of him felt relieved. I knew he was just waiting to go and be with you, so he did. Off he went and even though losing you both when I was 17 hurt me, it healed both of you. Sometimes, I like to dream that Pop-Pop is singing “You are My Sunshine” to you, Nana, just like he used to. Every part of me knows that in some different world, that dream is coming true. You two were and still are my dream couple, an extraordinary relationship, soulmates, and my high hopes of what being in love will be like for me. Wherever you may be, you keep me believing as I continue to miss you every.
Love Truly,
Your Little Grand-daughter.
