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PM Style Blog - September "Soft Spot"

by ‎09-03-2015 09:20 PM - edited ‎09-03-2015 09:50 PM

 

Every week I write a blog for PM Style. Sometimes it has to do with fashion, sometimes it has nothing to do with fashion. This week, it’s the latter. This week something melted my heart, and broke it a little too. This week’s blog is just about life, and love. And how both are beautiful. And fleeting.

 

Joe’s Dad, my father in law, is 87yrs old. We call him Pop. Pop used to be a Philly cop. He served in the military. He raised three kids all by himself, working weird shifts and wearing a uniform. Back in Pop’s day cops were admired, respected. They were treated with honor. Pop says it’s different now. Pop loved to dance back then, especially to that song, “Bad Bad Leroy Brown”. I danced to that song with him at our wedding. He wasn’t too impressed with my moves. Turns out, I didn’t follow his lead so well and even stepped on his toes a few times. Instead of occupational hazard, I’ll call it, “generational hazard”. Ha.

 

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The love of Pop’s life was a lady named, Fran. Pop grew up blocks away from Fran in the old neighborhood in downtown Philly. Then like most good ole love stories, Pop and Fran married other people, moved away, you know the drill. They lost touch, followed different lives…and then, one day in a Sears store where Pop took Joe shopping for school clothes, Pop ran into Fran, “Franny”, after all those years. Fran was a seamstress there. Joe describes the look on his Dad’s face seeing Fran, like seeing cupid's arrows flying. Pop and Fran fell in love, and they dated, old school style, for over 20 years. Pop would shower and put on his best suit, and then just go over and sit with Fran and talk the night away. When Fran passed away 8 years ago from Lewy Body Dementia, she took a piece of Pop’s heart and soul with her. Pop hasn’t had the same spark in his eye since Fran, Joe says. Slowly over time, Pop became more introverted, stopped going out and socializing. It’s like life ended a little, when Fran was no longer there to help him live it and enjoy it. So this week, as Pop has become increasingly sick and frail, Joe decided to boost his spirits and take him on a field trip. A field trip to visit Fran.

 

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These pictures absolutely break my heart and bring tears to my eyes. Love doesn’t stop just because life does. I like to think Pop went on a date with Fran this week when Joe drove him to her grave. Joe thought enough to take a chair because he knows his Pop is too tired now to stand, and Joe gave Pop a little one on one time with the lady he calls his “Sweetheart”, so they could “talk". The only words that come to my mind when I see these pictures are love story. Beautiful profound love story. 

 

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Pop sits in a LazyBoy recliner we gifted him one year, and watches me on QVC. He gushes with pride and always tells me how nice I look. He can’t believe how I manage to talk for so long without running out of things to say. Pop is the most simple, adorable man from an era that is gone. And he is my husband's hero. That’s quite a love story too. Smiley Happy 

 

Shawn
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