A TRIBUTE TO ALICE September 21,2001

First my son, Jeff and then my daughter, Robin called me in Michigan to tell that their Gramma Alice died. As I worked through the day I thought about her continuously. The fact that she would have been 93 on her next birthday was mind boggling to me. She was such an amazing woman. I loved and admired her very much.

Her grandchildren would be the first to tell you she was the epitome of a Gramma! She had an enormous capacity for love. All of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren knew about her love. She taught them how to cook,crochet,do laundry but even more, how one should live.

Alice told her grandchildren wonderful Irish superstitions. I sometime thought she must know them all; they were wonderfully wild and entertaining. She had such a sweet humor about her.
Alice talked to children not down to them.

She shared wonderful things with Jeff and Robin. For Jeff , she knew that he had a sweet tooth that adored chocolate chip cookies(when he took a handful out of the freezer on his way to his bedroom at night--she would just smile and see that the cookie cache was replenished.)

Alice taught Robin how to peel an apple by starting at the stem and peeling to the bottom while the skin in one piece. I remember hearing the laughter when Robin succeed in doing it by herself the first time. Robin will never peel an apple without thinking of her gramma
Alice.

Alice had great lessons to teach us all. It the mid 60's she was pulled from a car accident.
The only bone in her body that was not broken was her right leg (but those tendons were
nearly all ripped apart.) The Dr.'s prognosis: "she will never live." (she was 62 at the time.)
Alice did. The next prognosis "she will never walk." Alice did.

Alice was in a coma for 21 days. Her children,grandchildren, brothers and sisters, whispered words of encouragement and love and she survived.

She spent 4 months in the hospital. She had to heal first but she also had to grieve for Roy,(her husband of 40 years) who had been killed in the accident. The tears would flow from her eyes in great streams and she could not wipe them away. Both arms were broken. She never gave up.

I spoon fed her lunch each day for two months and she was like a baby bird, hungry and eager for the next bite. She was going to get better; she fought with amazing tenacity for things that were going to make her well.

Alice had to have eye surgery to straighten her eyes because they were so injured. She had to learn to walk all over again and she did. She lived with a scar that ran from her nose to the middle of her cheek(she never had it repaired because it never bothered her.) Alice was a beautiful woman but she was not vain.

So it was for Alice,she not only brought her broken body back to life--she walked,she danced, she even fell in love again. She shared a wonderful 10 years of happiness with her "Jimmy."
He made her laugh like she had never laughed before.

Not long after his 80th birthday ,Jimmy died. Alice alone again struck out on her "new life" in a senior complex. During this time Alice fought colon cancer and she survived again to live to this wonderful age of "almost 93".

Goodbye,My Dear Alice, how very grateful I am that I had the opportunity to know you and love you. You have touched many lives and were living proof that if life hands you a lemon--not only do you make lemonade but you make it the sweetest and the best you have ever had!!