Nan and Poppie

In honor of my late grandparents, Nan and Poppie, who I am proud to call my friends:


"The history of our grandparents is remembered not with rose petals but in the laughter and tears of their children and their children's children. It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone. It is in us that their history becomes a future."


Poppie passed away about a year and a half ago and Nan followed him just a week ago.
The Pittsburgh Trib wrote really nice articles about each of them and their generosity to the community which you can read here:


Poppie

Nan

Having lost both of them in such a short time span was a major shock to my system as they were both such a big part of my life and a staple of my childhood. I spent so many good times with them and had so many adventures - they took me and my siblings and cousins on wild trips like bicycling through Holland, Helicopter rides over glaciers in Alaska, Parasailing in Mexico at age 11, and exploring the Galapagos Islands.

Some of my best memories of them were hearing stories about how they met and fell in love, my father's childhood, my own early childhood that I couldn't remember. They were definitely a key to the past, but will always be a symbol of the future for me as they showed me what it was to live full, active lives (they downhill skied into their seventies), explore the world (Poppie lived with an Inuit for a time and trekked the Amazon, Nan left her home of New York to start a life in Pittsburgh, a city she'd never known), and what it means to be committed to another person (What Nan sweetly called their "Love Affair" lasted more than six decades and, hopefully, after a short, painful pause when Poppie died, continues to this day.)

One of my favorite Nan and Poppie moments:
My cousin Katie and I were drawing on each other to pass the time during a long day of travel. Nan leaned over to us and, in a whisper, asked Katie to write the letters A.R. (Poppie's initials) on her still elegantly slender foot and put a heart around it. She quickly covered it up and told us she showed it to him later, in private. This was some fifty years into their marriage and for some reason always gave me so much hope and love for life.

For that, and many other things, I truly thank them.


"Grandparents hold our tiny hands for just a little while, but our hearts forever."