Mimi + Pop Pop: Old Love on Film

Everyone, I’d like you to meet Mimi and Pop Pop, my grandparents :) They are the best version of Southern grandparents, and I love them dearly! When I was little, we’d visit them in their big brick house in Asheville, NC, and I’d help her make enough biscuits to feed an army. He’d take me out in a beekeepers suite (that was enormous) and show me all the honey his honey bees were making in the back yard. I learned to swim in their pool and prided myself in being the oldest grandchild, always bossing around my younger cousins as we rode our bikes in the driveway. They’ve taught me a lot and I’ve seen them walk through some incredible challenges and obstacles hand-in-hand. Truly, though, one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in them is a love that’s lasted more than 60 years. This past summer I had the rare chance to spend a day with them – just the three of us. I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened! Since I knew I probably wouldn’t see them for a long time, I wanted to take a few pictures of them together in the park down the hill from their house. I thought for sure, they’d probably just endure picture-taking to make me happy (since, let’s be real, most grandparents don’t really love being in front of the camera in my experience), but it was as if they’d been transported back to their wedding day. They were giddy happy together as I snapped away. She wore the cross necklace that I played with as a kid and he wore a bagpipers tie because the Scottish pride is very strong in my family. It was perfect. When I got these scans back a few weeks later, I thought how this is what I hope and pray for for all my couples. That 50, 60, even 70 years down the road they look at each other the way that my Pop Pop still looks at Mimi. Old love is the best love, guys.

Film Processing by PhotoVision