I adored my grandmothers and cherish the times we spent together and the letters we exchanged over the years.
So when I read the beautiful eulogy composed by a friend's daughter about her beloved grandmother, it brought back many wonderful feelings and memories of museum visits, shopping excursions, and other adventures with my two grandmothers.
Jessica, 18, delivered her tribute in Canada last month, after her grandmother Rose –- aka Nana -- died from cancer at age 81. Born in Poland and the daughter of working class immigrant parents, Rose went on to become an accomplished biochemist and one of her university’s first female department heads.
Her success in academia was matched by her success as a grandmother, as I quickly realized when I read Jessica's eulogy and saw some tender photos of the two of them shortly before Rose's death. I'm sharing the eulogy here:
"My Nana was … my nana. She wasn't my oma, my bubby, my grammy, my grandma, she was my Nana. I always bragged about Nana incessantly. I told everyone that she was the chair of the biochemistry department at McGill, that she was 80 and still played tennis every day, that she went back and forth from Israel to Montreal. She was my pride and joy, and I hers.
Every day I spent with Nana was an adventure. She would take me dancing in the park, she would take me to the opera, she would take me on walks around Montreal, she would take me to her lab and let me do my own experiments -- she even made going to her hairdresser exciting.
I loved absolutely everything about Nana. I loved that she traveled the world. I love that wherever she went, she always brought me back a souvenir. I love that she polished rocks. I loved that she was a working mother, a scientist, in the '50s when that was unheard of. I loved she would take me in for a week during the summer and watch over me while I went to day camp. I loved that she was the best cook in the world, but didn’t even understand the meaning of a recipe. I loved that she would do anything in the world to make me happy. Her overwhelming love sent me to the moon and back, and made me never want to leave her side.
When I was just a few months old, Nana and my Uncle Eric took me out to a local coffee shop. Now, my mom had this crazy idea that I was not to have anything with sugar so as not to get hooked. Nana ordered coffee and a cookie -- she always needed something sweet with her coffee. "Watch this, Eric," Nana directed, as she put a few crumbs of her cookie on my lips. As I tasted the treat, my eyes opened wide, I outstretched my hand -- hallelujah, I had found it! Nana and I shared our first little secret. She gave me my first taste of sugar.
Nana wanted me to have everything, to experience everything, including the sweetness of life. She made my life sweeter in more ways than I could possibly explain. … I can only hope that her life philosophies and lessons to live life to the fullest and enjoy every twist and turn live on in me, and that I make every single day an opportunity to live up to the model she instilled in me."
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