Rembering "Chick"

My dear grandmother will be ending her six year battle with ovarian cancer today. It is easy to say that I am devastated. I knew it was coming but has not made things any easier. She was a second mother to me when my own was unavailable. This is our second loss in the past 2 weeks. My husband lost his grandfather two weeks ago.
This is my part in my grandmother's eulogy next week:


When I was a little girl the thing I admired most about my grandmother was her beauty. I loved to go in her room and smell the different things she used to get ready everyday. I can still smell the fresh scent of Noxzema that will always be grandma to me. I would sit on her bed and she would tell me about stories from when I was a baby and about her children when they were young. Afterward she would always give me one of her special candies she kept hidden in her room.

As I got older she continued to share her stories with me. Slowly she started to tell me the tales of her childhood. There was always a good story about getting into trouble with the nuns in Catholic school because of her sassy ways or the boys doing outrageous things to her long braids. There were also stories that took me by surprise. Like attending Ukrainian school, taking the train to New York City and my all time favorite her days roller-skating as “Chick”. She would tell me about any story as long as I asked.

All of these stories opened a whole new person I had never imagined, but made my grandmother complete. As a child I had only seen her as a loving mother and grandmother devoted to her family. But these stories helped me to see beyond and I feel very special to have shared those stories sitting on her bed with her all these years. It also helped me realize that her beauty was more than skin deep. She was a wonderful woman who had undergone many things in her life with grace, dignity, beauty and a whole lot of spunk. I hope I can make her proud and do the same.