Last night I drove down to my grandmother’s for some one-on-one time, and to catch up on the latest Bachelorette gossip. After the most amazing meal of green beans, chicken and dressing, and the ripest tomatoes ever, I asked a question that I wasn’t sure how the response would go.

My grandfather passed away 9 years ago, and it seems more and more these days, I am forgetting him. I was fortunate enough to have him in my life until I was 20, but I’m forgetting the light that was in his eyes, or the way he laughed…and can only remember those last few years when he was so sick. So, I asked, what she missed most about him. Her eyes lit up, and she just said she missed him being around. She then told story after story of their life together. When they were dating, he was so scared of her father, that one night when he came to pick her up, he fell backwards off the front porch into the bushes. He drove a car that had a racoon tail on the antenna, and a horn that played “a shave and a two bits”. They eloped.  For their first christmas he got her a purse, 3 pairs of socks, and a picture of a baby. To this day, she doesn’t know why she got a picture of a baby. She misses his laugh. I remember him having a contagious laugh.

I know that our intentions were to just dive deep into a reality tv coma, but the life stories shared last night will stay with me.

Ask your family about times gone by. It was a fascinating world, in a time where drive ins, and dances ruled the dating scene. A time that seems foreign to me, but makes my grandmother light up and I can see her reliving her times as a young woman.

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