Sadly though, this is my first April without him since he suddenly passed away in November. For this issue, I decided to talk about some of my favorite memories of my Pop.
One of my favorite things that my brother and I would do was spending the night with him and my step-grandmother, Juju. As a tradition, we would always go to Blockbuster and they would let my brother and I each get a movie and a box of movie candy. After that, we would go back to their house and stay up really late watching the movies. Those are definitely some of my best memories.
This next one isn’t exactly a memory, because I can’t actually remember it, but I have heard plenty of stories about it. Apparently, as an infant, I was not exactly my Pop’s #1 fan. I have heard that every time he even walked into the same room as me, I would suddenly just burst into tears. I don’t know why I did it, but it was completely irrational since my Pop was one of the sweetest people I knew.
Another thing that I can remember that makes me laugh about my Pop was the way he said “birfday”. (We would always joke about it, so anytime it was someone’s birthday we would hear a chorus of “Happy Birfday to You”!) Also, he never smiled with his teeth. I’m not exaggerating at all, you will most likely never find a picture of him showing his teeth unless he is laughing or having dental work. (Pop would chuckle at that.) The funny thing was, he was a very happy guy, there was nothing wrong with his teeth! They were perfect little pearly whites! He would always do the closed lip smile, but he managed to rock it!
Something else that I can remember about my Pop was his love of peanut butter. He used to tell me about how he and my mom used to buy a jumbo jar of peanut butter for the weekend, and it would be gone by the beginning of the next week. It may be hard to believe, but it was true! (That was just a funny detail that I couldn’t help but write about!)
One last thing about my Pop that I will always remember is how proud he was of anything my brother and I did. He would always come to any orchestra (band for my brother) concert, or any performance that I was a part of. I knew I could always look out into the audience and count on seeing his beaming face. (A beaming face without showing teeth, that is.)
Pop, we sure miss you and we wish you a Happy Birfday!
That’s everything with Ella! (For now…)
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
Contact me at everythingella@outlook.com!
