Yes...I said 93! What a blessing it was to celebrate the life of my "Poppy" today! He has been walking this earth for 93 years...can you imagine? Well, I can't! Here he is in his new Atlanta Braves hat from Charley, Haven, Tanner & Tomas! He loves the Braves! Today was special with family and friends getting together to just enjoy a very special man. Think of everything that he has seen in 93 years! Oh, the stories he has to tell. He has been very blessed with good health, he still drives, still has a very good memory...and he loves getting together to eat! In fact, he and my dad eat breakfast EVERY morning. Monday, Wednesday, Friday they go to Made With Love in Cookeville. Tuesday and Saturday's they go to Cracker Barrell. Sundays they don't eat breakfast together but meet for lunch after church! David has often said he wished that over the years we had recorded the stories he has told about the things he has seen and the things he has lived through. For instance, in WWII he was in a tent invading an island (for the life of me can't remember which one) pretty sure it was Okinawa. He and his buddies sleeping on their cots in a tent when they heard the familiar whistle of a bomb falling...he rolls over with his cot on top of him...his life is spared when most others in his tent were not. He spent the night giving morphine shots to his buddy just to get him through the night...hoping he would not run out before morning until help arrived. The places he has gone...riding trains to California! He and my grandmother were married for sixty-six years. My grandmother "GranGran" passed away three years ago. She would have been 95 this year. Today my aunt shared something she found in a basket that GranGran had written...must have been some 30 something years ago and was just found recently. She titled it "The Things I Like". This was a five page handwritten note listing all of the thing she liked! We all cried reading it...She liked antiques, hanging baskets, and pillows...Gatlinburg, California, and her hometown...when a man shows a woman affection like reaching for the hand of the woman he married...likes it when a man looks as good in overalls and whiskers as he does when he is getting ready for a party...likes junk jewelry and polished nails...likes covered porches.... The list goes on and maybe that will be another blog. Altogether this inspired me that we should all leave something special for our children and loved ones to find one day. Gone but not forgotten...We love you GranGran!
Several years ago on their 60th Anniversary on January 25, 2002 I wrote a poem for them as a gift...I have decided to share it with you which is very unusual for me to share anything I have written. I used to write a lot but after two babies the writing slowed and eventually stopped for several years...like 7 years...but I love writing...good or bad I enjoy it and I might as well share it because I don't do it for money or fame...just because!
Without Them
Some sixty years have come and gone
But the love of two keeps livin' on.
At a time of war
There came a love
A love that changed us all.
The end of an era
Where love really lasts
Part of the few who make it past.
They are givers of much
And takers of little
Two people who love
Without much in the middle
They are Poppy and Grangran
How we know them best
Without them
Our lives would not be so blessed!
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