Grow Old Together

Megan Barabasz captured these beautiful photos. Grow old together.

Megan Barabasz captured these beautiful photos. Grow old together. We can all only dream of having a love as beautiful as this.

" I love photographing people who have stories I get to share, and these people are very important to me so this post is a little bit sweeter. This is my grandma Melva and grandpa Thane.

"Picture this scene for me, you are 27 years old and you take a step out of your car with three kids in tow. Its a beautiful day, 82, sunny, with an Oklahoma breeze. You hear windchimes, the same ones you have heard for years, everything is so familiar and the warmth of past memories begin to enter your mind. Sitting inside the brick house with a concrete porch and acre plot are your grandparents, waiting to tell you stories.

"“We met when I was working at Conoco in 1964, your grandma was working as a cook. I was staying in a hotel here and the owner is who introduced us."

"You see, my grandfather is 85 and loves to reminisce about the past, he journaled every day for many years. I remember staying the night with them almost weekly as a child and watching him journal in his office with brown shag carpets and cases full of beautifully crafted revolvers and rifles.

""He was the hardest worker I have ever seen or met," said my grandmother. "I started working on smoke stacks when I was 15." For those of you who don't know, smoke stack construction was extremely dangerous, hard labor, and required traveling all over the US and surrounding countries. While eating his dinner in the same kitchen that Christmas Eve parties are held each year he told me stories of traveling to 48 states, and at least four surrounding countries to work on the massive structures. When I asked them to tell me a memory they couldn't decide on just one, but the main theme involved their home.

"The house is three bedrooms, with what was a beauty salon and sewing room attached, a brick fire place in the living room, and a kitchen big enough for the most avid baker. My grandmother would bake for a week before Christmas to get all the goodies ready, she would make the best fried chicken and apple cobbler anyone has tasted! As a child they had the most grand garden I had ever seen, filled with okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons.

"Their home is where everything in their lives came together. After they were married they began planning, they built their dream home in two years, they worked in all their free time. My father and aunt helped, no one ever complained about building their home.

"My grandfather started a construction business here so he wouldn't have to travel anymore and the kids worked with him. "I remember when your dad was about four years old, he wanted to work with me, so I took him. He went and was painting a porch for me. Of course I always paid the kids, but some of the customers would give him a little extra for helping me."

"You see, when I am older I want to look back and have a life full of memories just like they have. I want my grandchildren to have wonderful memories of me like I have of mine. Watching Andy Griffith, swimming next door in my great aunt and uncles pool, sleeping on a pallet in the living room, and being sang to while my grandma played her piano. Today I left my grandparents house with many more stories than what I have even mentioned, I also left with warmth in my heart and more memories of my own." -@meganbarabaszphotography

Grow old together.