My grandparents met when my nana was 19 and my gramps was 26. He told us he saw her at a party, and he just knew. They had a seven-year age gap and led completely different lives. All of that didn’t matter, though, because as cheesy as it may sound, they both just knew -- and when you know, you just know.

They spent their life raising my biggest role model, an amazing woman I am lucky enough to call my mother. I consider myself to be so lucky, because as my mother grew up and moved out and away, they lived close enough to be able to be a part of my brother's life -- and my own.

The two of them were a major part of why I believe in true love, fairytale love, but mostly real love. They had 31 years full of arguments, inside jokes and a life together -- and then they didn’t. She was 50 years old; he was 57 when she started getting lost on her way home from the store. We all just claimed it was old age and that she was just older, so she was just forgetting things here and there. But that wasn’t it at all. Five years later, after more struggle than we decided was normal, she received her official diagnosis of Lewy Bodies Dementia. But my parents just told us it was Alzheimer’s because it was easier to explain. She was only 55 years old when we all had to start preparing ourselves for the loss that was to come. Once my gramps couldn’t take care of her on his own anymore, he had to put her in a nursing home. That’s when I realized that my gramps was the strongest man I will ever know.

He woke up next to her and loved her for over 30 years, and then he had to put his love in a home. He had to drive to see a woman who once slept in the bed next to him, only to talk to someone who no longer remembered him. I watched her slip out of all of our hands until one day in August of 2010, she was gone for good, and he remained strong as far as I could tell. Don’t get me wrong, he cried and his voice shook, and it still shakes sometimes when her birthday rolls around, but whose wouldn’t?

He wasn’t strong because he wasn’t constantly crying in front of all of us, he was and is strong because he goes to all our family events and sits at a table she used to sit at too, because he has pictures and furniture and knick knacks that she was a part of picking out. There are a million reasons every day why he should be broken, and he’s not. He is a strong, funny, happy, God-honoring man.

That day my mom lost her mom and I lost my grandma. But he lost the love of his life, his best friend, and yet he still cracks jokes with me every time I see him. My grandfather is able to show me every single day that even though bad things happen, that doesn’t mean this is a bad life. He was able to pick himself back up, that is his strength. The type of strength I hope to have one day.

So thank you, Gramps, for just being you.