My beloved Nana, age 93, passed away rather suddenly on December 6, 2020, adding a whole new level of pain to an already challenging year. I was fortunate enough to get to visit her in the hospital hours before her passing. I was mere days out of major orthopedic surgery, but once I realized the hospital would bend its rules for an end-of-life situation, nothing would stop me! My brother was kind enough to drive me down to the hospital so we could see her together. Although she was unresponsive by then, I believe she could hear us or, at least on some level, realize we were there.

We had her memorial service on December 10, 2020, and it was a beautiful celebration of her life. Greg and I each eulogized her during the service. I can’t think of another way to express the type of woman she was than to copy my eulogy below:

My brother and I were fortunate to grow up only a few blocks away from Nana’s house. We would frequently visit her and, as is the case with most grandmothers, we could get away with a lot more at her house than our own. I remember rollerskating in her basement and even sometimes in the great room. We regularly blew our bedtime during sleepovers. And I always knew if Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me eat cereal for lunch, all I had to do was bicycle to Nana’s house and she’d offer me my choice of cereal. 

Nana also helped cultivate a love for puzzles. She enjoyed doing crossword puzzles her entire life, but she also spent many hours with me doing jigsaw puzzles. The 500-piece puzzles we often had at her puzzle table in the living room frustrated me as a child; that many pieces was overwhelming for an elementary age kid. When I felt down about my progress, though, she would tell me that “every little piece counts.”

Our lives are made up of pieces, some large, some small, most somewhere in between. Each of those pieces fit together perfectly to make up her beautiful life. Every piece counted.

Nana was a rarity in many ways, including that she had a college education. She had an unparalleled command of the English language and passed that on to all of us; I believe that is, in part, what inspired my career choice of journalism. We might be the only family that would sit around the dining room table at holidays discussing vocabulary, grammar, its intricacies and our pet peeves AND laugh while doing so.

She was also well-traveled. In 1997, Nana joined us on a family cruise to the Caribbean where we convinced her to do a banana boat ride around the ocean, where a speedboat pulled banana-shaped rafts behind it that we sat on–not the type of activity a 70-something-year-old would generally participate in. But that was the type of woman she was: adventurous, ready for a good time, and unable to say no to the pleadings of her grandchildren.

I also traveled to New York City with her twice. The first time for my 17th birthday when we saw Les Miserables on Broadway, then spent a couple days sightseeing. Later, Mom, Bridget and I took Nana to New York to celebrate her 85th birthday and see Anything Goes. She had an episode prior to the show where she passed out in line. After it was apparent she was fine, she refused an ambulance and EMT care, proclaiming she didn’t want to miss the show. A policeman who responded and was standing beside me started laughing quietly and said to me, “She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” 

But no piece was as vital as the family piece.

Though Greg and I were her only biological grandchildren, we weren’t the only ones who called her Nana. She exuded such warmth to our friends that several of them took to calling her Nana. Later in life, both of us married and had children of our own, and the circle of people who called her Nana once again expanded.

Of course, Nana as a wife and parent shaped her life from her early 20s on. My experience with those is limited, but I know she raised four wonderful children, one of whom I call my mom, and I know my mom wouldn’t have been such a great mother if she hadn’t had a great mom herself.

Knowing Nana was synonymous with knowing a selfless, gracious, generous individual who exhibited utmost concern for others. In true Nana fashion, when I was saying goodbye to her over the phone she would barely let me get a word in edgewise. Though most of her speech was garbled, I understood enough to hear her express words of affirmation and love for me. Even in those final moments, she wanted to comfort and uplift those she loved. That’s the type of woman she was in every moment of her being. 

Her legacy will live on through her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren as we strive to exhibit that same selflessness and generosity.

I never had the opportunity to meet my grandfather, but I knew their love story, and I believe Nana is now reunited with him with her vision and mobility restored, and they are dancing through heaven together. 

See Nana’s full obituary.