The Happiness Port Project

This year Memorial Day was different. Remembering how into the Civil War I was, I decided the embrace the real reason for the season and today we visited Pop-Pop and the other veterans at Valley Forge Memorial Gardens. See: "Note: HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! [Embed JmmTcSxl56xU..." and "Note: Here's a closer up shot. He served in the Air ...".

Lately, I've been thinking about Pop-Pop and I remember how angry I was as a teen about mom and her family. I guess some things never change. I was angry at his alcoholism and I was angry that he created mom into being an alcoholic, and even though he did some good deeds - he refurbished computers, that was his business and he gave elementary schools computers for nothing - I held his drunken deeds against him. Mom called me selfish and I'm sure others did too, but I thought it was justified. Now that I am getting older and now that I am scrapbooking things more and more, especially for my Happiness Box, I wish I spent more time with him and took more photos while he was still alive. When his Irish cousins, who were writers and living in New York at the time, came to visit, I wish I took photos of that evening. We all had fun - the stories (and Guiness) were flowing. I was 17, so I didn't drink and wasn't dreaming of it. I loved his cousins, Vincent and Mary, and we exchanged contact information. A week later, Pop-Pop died. He had lung cancer, held on for almost two years. He was going through chemo and radiation, so he blew up, and that could be why there weren't many photos. I enjoyed Vincent's and Mary's visits and although there are no photos, I still have the memories, and I suppose that counts for something right?