To PPTC, From the Koplin Family

Editor’s Note: The following is the text of an address given by Allison McGinnis, Michael Koplin’s daughter, at the 2020 Memorial Ceremony held in Prospect Park at Harry’s Wall on November 25, 2020.

If there is one thing you should know about my father, it was that he loved cookies. Yes cookies. Sometimes, I think he ran, just so he could have cookies!

There was one cookie in particular that my father loved. It was the Nutter Butter. If you went to the store now and bought a package of Nutter Butters, the cookie would be in the shape of a peanut and filled with a peanut butter cream. These were NOT the nutter butters I am referring to. 

I am referring to the Nutter Butter cookies  that one can only find once you left the tri-state area. These butter butters are actually a wafer. They are shaped like a square, not a peanut and are filled with creamy nutter butter peanut butter.  So why have I just differentiated between the two types of nutter butter cookies? Well here is why…

My brother and I were always blessed to be able to go on a summer vacation with my parents. No the vacations were not extravagant. Catskill cabins and dude ranches were the norm. But always so fun and so memorable. Then as I married and had children of my own, the family vacations I took with my children, grew to include my parents. Here is where the Nutter Butters come in...I promise!

Once we would get settled wherever we were staying, we would head out to whatever grocery store was around to buy food and snacks. And without fail, my father would make his way to the cookie aisle and come back with an arm full of non-Brooklyn, wafer style Nutter Butters. How he stumbled upon these cookies years ago is a mystery but wow, he loved these cookies and the quest for the wafer cookies became part of our vacation tradition as far back as I can remember.

Fast forward to the first weekend of November 2020. It had been a little over a week and a half since my father had left this world. I had just dropped my mother at home for the first time since that day. I decided to go food shopping. I walked up the cookie aisle and low and behold, what caught my eye...the red plastic wrapper of the wafer style Nutter Butter. I stood there, dumbfounded. For years, decades, we looked for these darn cookies here in Brooklyn, and never found them. Yet here I was, staring at the cookies in the Stop n Shop on cropsey avenue. 

I have no idea if those of you out there believe in signs, or that your loved ones never really leave you. But I do. I am strong in my faith and steadfast in my belief in signs. So I immediately texted my mom and my two best friends. Who all had the same reaction. It was at that moment, I know without a shadow of doubt that he wanted to let me know he was there. But it was in that moment, standing there alone in the cookie aisle, searching for a tissue as my tears were falling into my mask that I realized, he was not ready to go as much as we were not ready for him to go. But for whatever reason, he was needed somewhere else more than he was needed here. This is something none of us will ever understand. Nor is it for us to understand.

But what is for us to understand is that we are all better people for having known Michael Koplin. My father was far from perfect. But that is what made him unique and distinctly Michael. He read the most boring history books you could ever find, he logged his gas mileage, never ever mixed the food on his plate. He would eat all of his chicken before he would eat the rice. He could be short tempered, and hated, I mean hated crumbs on the floor. 

He always struggled to show his emotions yet as he got older he was quick to cry and laugh when I called him a sappy old man. He was quick to tell you to suck it up and move on, and as much as I hated hearing it he was always right. He was also your quiet champion. He was the one who would have more confidence in you than you ever could. He believed in you in a way that few could. Failure was never, ever an option, but when you faltered that is when you worked harder and smarter. This is something he not only taught each and every one of us, but also lived by this as well. That is probably the biggest lesson I have learned from my father. Never, ever give up.

As you all know, over the past two years, my father struggled with his running. His body and his brain just would not work together. His body hurt, but his brain and his ego hurt more. He spoke to doctors, went to physical therapists and used his dreaded foam roller. But nothing worked. But that did not stop him. He figured ok, if I can’t run long, let's try something else. So he would go to Coach Tony’s speed training and have small successes there. Instead of long runs he would go on long walk/runs along his usual route. Sometimes walking more than running. And everytime, he would post on strava no matter how tough the miles came that day. He remained steadfast in his belief that he could do this, that he would be able to run long again. Then out of the blue, this past spring and summer, my father found his mojo again, He began to obsessively talk about his runs again. About the miles he racked up during the week. How good he felt. He was back. Michael was back. I am so grateful that he got to do the one thing he loved on the last day of his life and shared it with you, the PPTC. 

A group of incredible people who accepted my father and allowed him into your world with open arms. A world that encouraged him to meet new people, to make new friends, to volunteer his time, to become a coach. You motivated him, you challenged him, you accepted him. And for that, I am eternally grateful. You gave him purpose, you gave him a place to channel his energy. You gave him a voice and a community. 

One of my favorite memories of the PPTC was meeting up with my dad after his first NYC marathon down at the school. The way you rally around your members, cheering them on when they walk through the door, making sure their clean dry clothes are there and making sure there is food and drink to replenish the mind and the body is amazing. You rally, that is what you do. And you did just that when he died. You rallied. A private message on instagram turned into kudos boards, social media posts, blog posts and a wildly successful fundraiser to honor a man who likely believed he was not worthy of the honor.

My family is humbled by your love and humbled by your generosity. Thank you for loving and accepting my father. Thank you for celebrating his life and thank you for ensuring that his life will be remembered, long after we are all gone.

Text by: Allison McGinnis
Produced by: Linda S. Chan