A Very Special Lady

My Grandmother, “Mika” passed away on Tuesday.

She was one of the most joyful and life-filled people we’ve ever known. She was beloved by everyone she ever met — to this day, we have friends who only met her once and still ask about her and say they love her. She loved so tremendously that we all felt like we were her favorite. She made you feel so special because that’s the way she treated you and loved you. She cried every single time her and I ever had to say goodbye to each other — even just hanging up on the phone! She remembered everyone I ever introduced her to and years later, still asked about them by name, with fond things to say.

I chuckle to myself whenever I think back to her on our wedding day… She was sooo happy and was the life of the party. She was out in the middle of the dance floor with Cam’s friends until it was shut down. Years later when we’d reminisce about it, she would tell me while beaming and laughing joyously, “oh I loved all those football players and that Joey! We danced all night!”  When Cam and I were getting ready to leave our wedding reception, everyone else was gathered at the front of the winery as I looked back one more time to take it in… and there was Mika, still dancing in between some of the tables. She told me she had the best time and never wanted the night to end. That really sums up my Mika — she loved and embraced those around her whole-heartedly and fully lived her life. She had a child-like joy that was contagious.

She used to tell me that there is nothing better in this life than to love your husband and your children and have a family.

The very first time she ever met Cam, she ran right over to him, calling him, “sena!!” as she called all of us she loved and asked him to pick her up just like she’d heard he always did with me. Cam hugged her and picked her right up off the ground and she just thought it was the best thing in the whole world. She always called him, “my baby.”

One summer when I was in elementary school, she came and stayed with us. She taught me how to grow tomato plants and to plant seeds. We spread wildflower seeds all over one of the hillsides in our backyard and by the end of the summer, it was covered in beautiful cosmos, poppies and lupines. The hillside bloomed summer after summer and became my very favorite part of the house I grew up in. She had an amazing green thumb and could get things to grow in her little backyard in south Florida that no one else could. She managed to bring an avocado pit home with her that trip in her suitcase, planted it in her backyard and to this day it is huge and still full of fruit. Cam and I also found her putting fruit pits in damp napkins on our windowsill in Zagreb while she was visiting. She told us to leave it alone and not throw it away so she could plant them when she got home. Ha.

The only time I ever saw her without a smile was during her final months. She suffered so much and was in a lot of pain, but still, she wanted to fight. Literally the whole rest of my life she was radiant and beaming. Her soul delighted in being surrounded by the people she loved.

I imagine her now, meeting her Savior, that same beautiful, child-like joy now magnified; exclaiming how wonderful Paradise is; having the best time, never wanting it to end, dancing and celebrating with the angels.