“I Hold My Pop-Pop”

Andy has a chain with a cross on it that was his father’s.  His dad wore it all of the time.  We have his chain hanging in our bedroom and every so often Elizabeth will come into our room and touch it or say “I hold my Pop-Pop.”.  We’ll take the chain down and let her carry it around the house or put it around her neck and she’ll wear it for awhile.  It gives us an opportunity to talk about Ace, her Pop-Pop, with her.

Since opening up our Florida boxes, I’ve also found some pictures of Ace that I could show her.  Last night Andy randomly grabbed two photo albums from 10-13 years ago.  And there was Ace in so many photographs.  So we started to point out pictures asking her to guess who was who – and remember, her youngest cousin who is thirteen now, was an infant in these pictures, so it was quite funny to see if she could recognize cousins, aunts and uncles.  She barely recognized Mommy and Daddy!  Ouch!!

But to hear her say, “My Pop-Pop” when she saw pictures of Ace filled my eyes with tears.  They would’ve so enjoyed each other had they had the opportunity to meet in life.