There are so many questions in life, things that happen that we can’t understand. Things you hear in the news or in history class at school – that don’t make sense. Or things that are discussed in politics, medicine or sports that you many not fully understand now – but eventually learn about, or things we think we do understand or know, things we believe in for a while suddenly change or become something different. It can be so difficult to understand the why or how of grown up things? Yet as an example of how it will all work out try to imagine this … when you go from kindergarten to fifth grade or fifth grade to high school you learn more and more and understand things in different ways – in kindergarten you can’t do algebra. But you can when you’re older. When you are first learning letters you cannot read but you eventually can. But there is something you can both be certain of today, while young, is something that you’ve known since you were babies. You are and always will be loved !
The real sincere feeling of comfort cannot be imagined. As a baby, a toddler , a young child and an older child you know what feels right to you and what makes you feel afraid or sad. You must always be able to tell the people you trust truth and keep the truth no matter what happens to make it fade.
A child knows When they are comfortable and when something is not right they can feel it. Take your memories of all the good and real events in your lives and use them make your own dream starters of sorts , You can always depend upon the fact that the love we have for both of you- is authentic/genuine. It is not wavering, and just like the flag story we talked about – how the men during the revolutionary war, who fought to keep it flying no matter what – well sweet kids- our love is just like that. No matter what happens – or what anyone could ever assume – our love will not change and is the exact same as you would remember it. Real. It is also forever. There is no way to truly explain to you how much we look forward to seeing you both again, we will wait- maybe it will be when things are not as busy.
When lots of time passes you could think we forgot, you could think we don’t care , You could think we are ones that are “too busy”. You could even think other things that would not be true. BECAUSE None of those things above are true.
THE Thing THAT IS TRUE IS you’re loved ! By so many people. Every person in the family you’ve spent years around is missing you, wishing you happiness and to stay as wonderful as you always have been. The things that YOU CAN REMEMBER should not be erased or altered by time or anything. Your memories should be cherished or kept special and valued. No matter how many minutes, hours, days, months, weeks or even years go by the truth will always be the truth and the love letters will always carry with them the reflection or the images of the truth.
The documents you’ll get when your old enough to read, able to understand the words, see who wrote them, or where they come from, will fill in blanks that can’t be understood now – and this information can help you as grown ups. It will help to fit all the pieces together – for these are records make a time line that shows our family’s birth from the beginning and how all the members of this family are good wonderful people. Each person in the world is different. We all have different kinds of life stories. So many different people and so many different life stories all merged together and created yours. It will show you all those who love you…. and there are so many stories of those who gave of themselves to make our own kids lives better, well as your lives so nice , for so long … not just Poppy and I, but uncles and aunts, great grandparents and cousins, friends …. and no matter what things may appear to be now you will have so much information that shows the love of family and is a great gift to know how loved you are.
All of us love you both and will always hope that love can bring to you and your family good things forever and always, to the moon and back …..
Today was Election Day and tomorrow will be Aunt Kiki’s birthday ! poppy will be in a few weeks and then before you know it – THANKSGIVING ! To be followed by Guge’s birthday and then the magical time of Christmas, S A N T A, and all the happenings of that holiday! We have gifts already for you both and we hope we will see you soon !
So much to look forward to. New memories and new experiences. I hope Aunt KiKi will get to see you on or near her birthday – she has always loved you both so much!
We have gifts for you for Guillianna’s birthday and for Christmas. We will send them if mom can’t come to the Mitten.
The most important thing to remember is that the smiles and happiness you have always had are priceless! We want you to keep them where ever you go, and in what ever you do …. isn’t that as the song said – “where ever you go, what ever you do, we’re going to do it together ! Through thick and through thin”
Used to be a favorite remember ?
No matter how cold it gets. How far you travel , no matter long it has been since you saw us – we are still and always will be your NANA AND POPPY. Love you to the moon and back, forever and always …
Hello to both of you, we are a day away from Aunt KiKi having her birthday, and about 2 weeks from Turkey Day. We sure will be super grateful for all the time we have had with you both and all your cousins over the years. We will hope that we can see you, talk, or FaceTime. That will always be our wish. Until then we will write, and you can one day know our intent, and hope. We sure did have some fun times – didn’t we? Hope you each had a great school day likely as its Monday. Do you two remember when Monday was dance for Guillianna and Elijah and Nana would go to the park or have Eli Nana time, often we would even get to go home and play, since Poppy picked up Guillianna. Eli and Nana would have so much fun on his specials and I for one feel extra lucky to have had those kind of opportunities. On Sunday it would be Guillianna Poppy Nana time since Elijah had gymnastics. Good times for sure. In addition there are so many times where it was all four of us together, and for sure lots where poppy was working and it would be us 3 … baking…. or a million other things.
Today I will just pop up a few quick photos and you can simply think back and ask was this fun?
So lucky to have these pics to share and help I honestly believe that one day you two and your mom will have for sure the best collection of the past 9 years! Until next time I write please know you two are amazing and brave ! Keep working super hard at school, listen, respect and love mom and dad and know …. we will always ,
Love ❤️ you both to the MOON AND BACK, always and forever,
Today is Sunday, last night we turned the clocks back, oh my how I wish I could turn the clocks back to last November ! We were just getting ready to go take one of you for some surgery remember? In my heart I feel that was a significant time and many changes began for us all. Too much to really understand now but can be explained when you are much older. For now, I just wish we had more time, so many choices were made, by lots of people in our lives, and since then we have lost some special people we all loved, like Grumpy who had no choice, and then saying good bye to Aunt Alyx. There has been so much sadness and huge change for so many people in our family, all separate from all of the changes in your own lives last January. Great Grandma Sally is missing her Grumpy so much. It is hard to be almost 90 and see so many sorrowful events happen in the lives of people you love. She has lived long enough to see so many changes in the world. She never imagined some things. Good as well as not good. You have to realize when she was born there wasn’t television. there was not cars like you know them, no air conditioning, everything in life was so different from the life we live today. Her best friend Ms Bertyl turned 103 this September – both of these women have seen the world and people in it evolve – and cannot begin to imagine or understand some things that they themselves have seen over the years they have lived. She truly misses you both. She is strong and courageous and she too knows you will always have great love in your hearts for her and she will always have great love for you two. She loved spending time with you both.
It’s been ten months full of so many changes, for everyone, and how I wish everyone could listen to their own hearts, find answers, fix things in life and hope for love and healing. We are hopeful that one day when you’re older and can see the love in the hearts of all your Aunts and Uncles, cousins and family that you both will look for answers in your hearts and know how lucky and wonderful your lives are. Gratefulness is so important for all people to know, because it usually brings happiness. Poppy and I have had so many smiles today reviewing all the videos and photos that we uploaded from the days you were here, and we are so happy that this kind of technology is available for future generations to be able to see the lives and memories in a manner that is able to remain intact, and simple to find. Old photos in boxes, or albums from years gone by can be so difficult to get to, or go thru, and they can be damaged or lost.
My parents kept old home movies on 8mm film, then there was VHS and Polaroids, or photos we used to send out to be developed. I am grateful for those images . The advent of digital images, and video has made it possible for people to keep memories organized and to make them come alive. The thing about this kind of memory “book” or blog is that in it you will find all kinds of answers. Answers to questions about memories that can fade, or be changed. Answers to question that you may not even know you have at 15 or 20 – but wonder when your 30 or 50 . There are also answers that are locked in your hearts for all time, and these images, will be so nice one day. They help us every day, to be grateful does bring happiness. We are forever grateful for time spent with both of you, all our grandchildren and our kids! One day, they will help you see life too. Peace, love, happiness are gifts, and they were in abundance during our time together. Special times with each of us, that will forever bind our love.
We want you to always have these photos and memories to ensure you will know how loved you have always been by us, by Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Great Grandparents and friends made through the years you were here. That love, those memories will be very important one day, for they will reassure you of your value to so many people, the impact you had upon lives and will help you to always know that everyone who you used to spend time with, who you loved, and cared for, understands that the Army moves people around, and no one will ever be sad that you cannot keep in touch easily, we all know how incredibly busy life is and we don’t ever want you to be sad that you didn’t have the opportunity to say hello, or ever wish anyone Happy Birthday and things like that. We all understand and want for you to simply have these images and videos, to help you when you are sad, or scared by moves made , to help you when you are missing all things familiar, or to help you when you simply want to feel good about the fun and wonderful things in your life.
We always made sure mom and dad got to feel as close to you as possible we took videos and sent photos, to make sure they could see you and know you were happy. Our promise to your mom was to keep you both safe, happy, healthy and to show her she could always trust us to support her. That was always our goal, and we gave our very best effort to make her and dad happy. Here are just a few of many videos we took.
Remember when we would sing them happy birthday, or send them random videos, and find ways to make sure they saw you at all your activities? We hope this site will one day be a huge gift for your parents to keep so many memories of you both where she and he can always treasure them. It began almost ten years ago – an idea that grew – Nana wanted mommy to see Guillianna every step of the way when she arrived here at not even four weeks old. We installed cameras, and I wrote love letters every single day. It was our love for you , then Elijah when he was born – and for our daughter as well, and we valued her trust in us for all those years! – Love brought you both into our lives to live for so long. We did every single thing in our power to make sure you were happy and healthy. We made sure you were always told how they were serving the country, keeping people safe and making sure you would be able to go to college, remember? We wanted you to be so proud of them ! No matter the time difference no matter where they had to travel, we made sure they saw you, and you saw them. When you were little and before FaceTime and all this technology we still found ways to play VHS tapes and DVDs that Nana made so you could always see their faces. Here is just a small sampling of a few hello’s!
On FaceTime mom would always call Eli a “little Stud Muffin” and yes, little man you were so adorable, look at this little clip…. so cute!
The family time in the Mitten was always special, and the love you had in your hearts was authentic/genuine and could not be denied. You can ask anyone … there was no better time for either of you than “Eli Nana or Eli Poppy, Gugu Nana or Gugu Poppy” time.
The love you both had for your Nana and Poppy was precious and you can ask anyone around, it was authentic/genuine love. Gugu and Eli both would dance with Poppy to Elf Story “extravaganza-glorious” and Moana, or play school bus driver…. she painted Poppy’s nails or put makeup on him. She also loved Nana Gugu time more than anything. Eli and Nana had some amazing Eli-Nana days and to play with Poppy build race tracks or go to his office, watch baseball and the Tigers… oh my goodness. Just thinking about these things reminds me how lucky we have been to have these times and well, the list is endless of things that the two of you loved. Your heart knows, and we hope you will keep all those amazing things so that when you need a smile, you can create your own “Dreamstarter” and replay all the amazing times.
These videos, and photos, are priceless, and Nana and Poppy love to see them, we hope you do too!
We hope to see you very soon, we hope you will come visit or we will be invited to see you. We are waiting and hoping. One day we hope everyone can listen to their heart… when that happens, we will bring you great big hugs and kisses from all of us in the Mitten, and you will feel so happy I am sure. Until that day, when we all can see each other again, we want you to stay as sweet and amazing as you always have been, work super hard at school, and listen to your parents. Have so much fun, know you are loved, and that nothing changes the love a grandparent has for a grandchild. Nothing changes the love a mom and dad have for their kids, and nothing can change the love a child has for the people they know to be good, and that they love and have always loved.
Love you to the moon and back, forever and always,
Nana
