Lucia

Some of you may have read my posting about my grandma, Lucia (everyone called her Lucy), back on August 15th of this year. Because I had shared a bit of her life with you at that time, I thought I should also share her passing yesterday morning. I can't say how privileged I feel to have known her and to have had her as my grandmother. She was one of the most loving and giving people I've ever known, and she always put her family first. She always told me that family is the most important thing. As hard as it was to see her go, it was peaceful, and I'm happy that my mom and I were there at the time she left us. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

She was born in Michigan in 1919, the youngest of 5 children. Her life wasn't easy...She never had a lot of money, but she was a tough lady and never complained. She had a lot of faith and taught me a lot about having faith as well. I was lucky - I was my grandmother's only grandchild, so I got all her attention. I was also lucky enough to have her and my grandfather just 2 miles away growing up in Southern California. When my mom and my dad moved to California from New York before I was born, my grandma and grandpa shortly followed so that they could be with their daughter and future grandchild. My grandma always told me that that was the first time her mother, my great grandmother, told her to leave her so that she could be with her daughter in California. My great grandmother understood what it meant for my grandmother to be near her child, and when I moved to Northern California, my grandma knew that she, too, would not try to prevent my mom from moving to be near me as well. Luckily, my grandparents also agreed, a couple years later, to make one last move to be near us.

I have so many memories of my grandma throughout my life. She was there for all major and not so major events in my life, from the day I got married to every soccer and softball game I ever played.

She was very tenacious and always found a way to get what she wanted even though it was almost always for someone else rather than herself. Whether it was an autograph from a movie star or getting Mickey Rooney to wave to me up in the balcony after watching his musical production of Sugar Babies, which was a gift to me for my birthday back in the early 80's. As a young girl, I remember loving Mickey Rooney in the movie The Black Stallion (which my grandma took me to see multiple times in the theater without ever suggesting we see something else by the 4th time around) and of course, my grandmother adored him from the old movies; so we shared that together, and we were both so excited to see him in person at the musical.

My grandma even managed to get the frame of TV news reel that had my mom shaking the hand of Robert Kennedy during a 1968 fundraiser in Binghamton, New York, which was covered by the local news. My grandma got a fellow from the news station to literally find the frame of my mom and Robert Kennedy together and cut it from the film reel itself.

There are so many stories...Too many to list here, but it's nice to at least get a chance to share a few of them here now so that they can live on in our hearts.

Here is a picture of my entire immediate family on my wedding day in 1999. My grandma is sitting on the bottom right.

I love this picture of my mom and my grandma on my wedding day.

Love you Grandma...xoxoxoxo