Words I should’ve said

Dolores Hans
MSMU class of 2025

(1/2025) As I sit back in solitude and observe the blue-sky transition to various shades of pink and orange, I remember the one who taught me to stop and pay attention to the little details in the world around me. I used to sit on the back deck of my Great Pop-Pop’s house with him and watch the sunset. Just the two of us. We would sit in absolute silence, unless he asked me a question or tried to tell me something important. To this day I can still remember the smells, sights, and feelings of his house. How the best feeling was stepping onto the ice-cold tile floor of the porch first thing in the morning. Or sitting on the rocks by the lagoon and watching the ducks float atop the water before venturing further out to sea. I remember the way it smelled when all of my uncles and cousins would bring an endless supply of meats and just barbecue for hours.

Great Pop-Pop was very protective of the flowers on his deck, and I remember them so vividly because everything else around his house was either rock or wood, there was no grass or line of trees where he lived in south Jersey. One time he told me that having his flowers there reminded him to keep an eye out for beautiful things. I was just a child when he said that so I don’t remember the context of it but, I do remember looking at them for a solid five minutes after he said it, with who-knows-what kind of childlike thoughts bouncing around in my head. I think what he said must’ve really stuck with me because I think one of my strongest qualities is my ability to see the incredibly subtle, yet beautiful parts of nature.

This quality has led me to find one of my biggest passions: photography. Through my lens I can clearly see every feather on a songbird, every vein of a leaf, and every detail of a flower like the ones on his porch. I can also observe the easily ignored qualities of people that make them beautiful. One of things I thought most beautiful about my Great Pop-Pop was that when he held you or hugged you, it always felt like home and intentional, like it was just as important for him as it was for us as children.

Somewhere down the line, I decided I didn’t want to sit on the deck and watch the sunset with him for one night. I don’t remember why, or if my little child brain even had a reason, I just remember telling my mom I didn’t want to. I think maybe I just thought that it took a long time and that because of that, I would get bored, as children usually do with their short attention spans and wandering minds.

Great Pop-Pop died when I was still young. I don’t remember him ever looking or behaving sickly, or even really noticing his old age. I remember my dad saying he was sick but to me that just meant he had a cold or something, I was too young to really understand the extent of it. And then all of a sudden, he was gone.

Those things I loved about his house just happened to become things I would come to miss. Being held by him would be something I would lay awake at night aching for. Looking at his face would only be done once more at his wake and from then on only in photos. I remember him not even looking like himself at the wake. He looked too dressed up, too clean, too young. It didn’t look or feel real.

I never got to thank him for teaching me everything he did. I never got to say goodbye. I should have stayed with him that one night to watch the sunset. I should have said thank you when he gave me cheerios with syrup for breakfast, or when he would hide quarters in the rocks that we would search for, and when he would give me a container full of change, he saved up every time he went to the store.

Now all I can do is think of him every time I see those yellow landscape stones or feel cold tiles beneath my feet or when I sit outside for hours beneath the color changing sky and appreciate it. As the sun sets, I wonder if he is proud of me, I wonder if he still sees that little girl or if he knows me better as an adult than I even know myself. I wonder if he grabs God’s attention and directs his gaze toward me. I wonder if God thanks Great Pop-Pop on my behalf every time I stop in my tracks to look at something beautiful. I wonder if he can still see the sunset.

Dear Great Pop-Pop,

I miss you. All the time. I hope I make you proud. Thank you for teaching me to appreciate the beautiful things around me. Thank you for saving up all of your change and giving it to me. Thank you for providing us with a home in your hugs. Thank you for leaving your wife’s rings to me, I treasure them. I hope you smile when you see the love I have found. He reminds me a lot of you. His hugs make a home, he is tall like you and likes golf, and he makes me laugh like you once did. We watch the sunset together like you and I once did, and I think of you every time. I try not to feel the empty space beside me as a place where you once were, but as a place I have saved for you, if somehow, someway you were able to be here, and I just didn’t know it.