Celebrating a Life

Tuesday night I got the news that my sweet Elizabeth (96 independent and sassy years old) was in the hospital and not doing well. Barbara (her granddaughter) and I raced to book flights to VA to see Elizabeth. There was little that would entice me to fly with the current TSA situation but this was the exception.

Elizabeth (whom I have lovingly call "E" for about a year, "Gaga" to the rest of the world) was so anxious to be reunited with the many loved ones that she had lost, passed very quickly before we could even get on the plane. So rather than a goodbye visit, this was a memorial trip.

While Barbara and I opened the many boxes of her lifetime of memorabilia, I discovered so many things I did not know about Elizabeth.

1. Elizabeth loved to sing naughty ditties while she played cards with her cousins.
2. She worked for NASA as a Math Technician aka "a computer in skirts" that did all the math calculations for the pioneering space program. She had an autographed photo of Alan Shephard.
3. She played and mostly won a card game named "manipulation". She did not enjoy losing.
   
4. She was a crafter all her life.
5. She scrapbooked her early years and family leaving details lists of what her life was like as a child.
6. She has a collection of postcards dating back 100 years.
7. She loved her family so very deeply and saved their cards, letters and photos in shoe boxes in the back of her closet.
8. A Sucrets tin held her secret spending money
9. She loved art and collected both Wallace Nutting and Thomas Kincaid.
10. She loved smart clothes and had many of them.
11. She wrote her own obituary and had the photo for the paper attached. She left very specific instructions.
12. She lived and loved fully and with great zest.

I am so blessed to have known her and called her friend.