One of the things I will always remember about my grandparents is how flirty and lovey-dovey they were all the time. Jack would always refer to Charlotte as “Sugar,” and it wasn’t until years after they both had passed that I learned that Sugar wasn’t her real name!

Whenever he would say “Hey Sugar, you look awfully lovely tonight darling,” in his Brooklyn accent, she would put her hands to her cheeks as they would turn red from blushing and she would giggle. That would only make him smile more.

All of my cousins would make faces and say “Eww!” whenever these two lovebirds would kiss or say things like that to each other, but I remember just watching them in awe of how happy they were together. I remember thinking that when I fell in love and got married, I wanted a relationship like they had.

Jack continued to make his “Sugar” blush until the day he died in 2014 at 94 years old. Sugar didn’t live much longer after that; I think her heart shut down after he died. No longer would she hear him coming up the stairs singing Burl Ive’s “Lavender Blue,” her favorite song, with a cup of coffee as he did every morning. Whenever I hear that song, I can picture him handing her the cup of coffee and nestling right beside her in bed and singing it to her in his deep smooth voice as she leaned her head on his shoulder.