If Pops was the man in the apron, Peggy was the woman at the table.
Cigarette in one hand.
Canadian Mist and Diet Coke within reach.
Halfway through a story.
And if the room stopped paying attention, she had a solution for that too.
BANG.
Her hand would come down on the table hard enough to rattle the glasses.
Everybody would jump.
Then Peggy would continue her story as though nothing unusual had happened.
I sometimes wondered if the message was:
"Dammit, pay attention. The story isn't over yet."
Looking back, I think she simply believed a good story deserved an audience.
That was Peggy.
She had a presence about her.
Not loud.
Not demanding.
Just impossible to ignore once she decided something mattered.
The funny thing is that when I first met her, I wasn't paying attention to any of that.
I was focused on Elizabeth.
Like any man in love, I was trying to figure out whether I belonged.
Whether I would fit into her family.
Whether they would accept me.
I didn't have to wonder for long.
Peggy was the first person to say good things about me.
She told Elizabeth I was a good man.
She told the rest of the family too.
At the time, I don't think she realized how much that meant to me.
Maybe she simply spoke what she believed.
Maybe she saw something in me that I couldn't yet see in myself.
Whatever the reason, I never forgot it.
She welcomed me into the family from the very beginning.
Not because she had to.
Because she wanted to.
That kind of acceptance is a gift.
Peggy worked at a bank.
She was good with numbers.
Very good with numbers.
While Pops helped build power plants, Peggy helped keep things balanced.
Looking back, they made a good team.
He built things.
She organized them.
He was the dreamer.
She was the planner.
Together they built a life that seemed full of friends, family, and adventure.
They loved camping.
They loved fishing.
I remember hearing stories about trips to the Gulf.
The older I became, the more I realized they genuinely enjoyed life.
I have often thought there is something special about some second marriages.
People appreciate things differently.
The little moments matter more.
The simple things matter more.
Jay and Peggy seemed to understand that.
They danced.
They traveled.
They camped.
They spent time with friends.
They enjoyed the life they had built together.
One of my favorite memories of Peggy involves a cigarette.
Not because smoking was a good thing.
Because it was so completely Peggy.
She would stand in a camper cooking dinner with a cigarette hanging from her mouth and an ash that seemed to grow longer with every passing minute.
I would stare at it and wonder if it was ever going to fall.
Surely it had to.
Yet somehow it never seemed to.
At least not while I was watching.
Dinner always survived.
The ash somehow survived.
And Peggy carried on as though this was perfectly normal.
Years later I would understand smoking differently.
I had been a smoker myself.
I tried quitting many times.
Failed many times.
Then finally succeeded.
When people asked how, I explained my theory.
The hard part about quitting wasn't nicotine.
The hard part was learning to do nothing.
After dinner.
On a work break.
Standing outside.
The cigarette gave people something to do.
Quitting meant learning that sometimes it was okay to simply relax.
To do nothing at all.
I shared that idea with Peggy.
To my surprise, she listened.
Then one day she admitted I was right.
Not because she wanted to agree with me.
Because she understood.
And after a lifetime of smoking, Peggy quit.
I was incredibly proud of her.
Not because she proved my theory.
Because she did something extraordinarily difficult.
I only wish she had discovered that truth sooner.
Maybe quitting gave us a few extra months together.
Maybe it didn't.
I honestly don't know.
What I do know is that I loved talking to her.
If quitting gave us even one more conversation, then it was worth it.
Peggy wasn't perfect.
Neither was Pops.
None of us are.
What made her special was something much simpler.
She made people feel welcome.
She made people feel accepted.
She made people feel like family.
She certainly did that for me.
When Pops passed away, Peggy carried on as best she could.
But some couples spend so much of life together that it becomes difficult to imagine one without the other.
Nine months after Pops died, Peggy followed him.
Part of me was heartbroken.
Part of me wasn't surprised.
They had spent years building a life together.
A family.
A community.
A collection of memories that still make me smile.
Today, when I think about Peggy, I don't think about hospitals.
I don't think about illness.
I think about stories.
I think about campers.
I think about Canadian Mist and Diet Coke.
I think about impossible cigarette ashes.
And I think about a woman who saw the good in me before I saw it in myself.
That is how I choose to remember her.