Janet Irene Lucyk - September 19, 1936 - February 22, 2011

My beloved Grandmother, Janet Lucyk, went to be with the Lord at 3pm yesterday, February 22, 2011. I have definitely not had or taken the time to fully process this profound loss. I know that myself and everyone who loves Grandma Lucyk will feel the pain of her loss at many points in the coming days, months and years.

I haven't lost a grandparent since I was 11 and my grandpa (Janet's husband) died. Of course I was sad at the time, and I still wish I'd gotten to know him better, but at such a young age, it didn't hit me like this has. I have had many friends lose their grandparents and while I was of course sad for them, I always thought that this loss would be a little less jarring, more expected, and overall easier to take than it has been. Mostly, that's because I expected to have many more years with my Grandma Lucyk.

I know everyone always talks well of the dead (rightly so), but personally, I have always thought that people tend to exaggerate how amazing people are after their death. However, I have to say that over the course of Grandma's illness, I have not heard ONE thing said about her that desn't ring completely true. In fact, many of them are things I WISH I had told her while she was alive, or at least thought about enough to be thankful for.

My earliest memories of Grandma Lucyk are from visiting her house, the one my dad and his 3 siblings grew up in. I remember going to the back bedroom and watching Casper the Friendly Ghost. Grandma taught me to color by drawing a dark line around the edges with the color and then coloring in lightly in the middle. She always had a canister of Planter's Cheese Balls. They had a trash compacter, and Grandma would always let me push the button. We played marbles, and the cat-eye one was my favorite. I remember the kerosene heater they always kept in the living room. It had exposed hot coils and was an all around hazard for little children, but this was the 80's and health hazards were a lot more prevalent than they are now :). I also remember the year that I couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve and discovered the truth about Santa. And finally, I remember, at 10 years old, forcing my parents and grandparents to teach me how to play euchre. I didn't care that I was "too young," I wanted to be part of the games.

And that's what I was, from the time I first learned about "tricks" and "trump," "bowers" and "the left," I never missed an opportunity to play cards or games with my grandma. Not 2 months ago, we sat around the table in our living room playing hand and foot, 313, and Blokus. We went through a phase when Skip-bo was our favorite.

Grandma Lucyk was always a "cool Grandma." When Grandpa died, she got a new condo and wanted everything light-colored. Nothing depressing, she said. She got a black cheery colored Dodge Intrepid and I thought I had the coolest grandma in the world. I still thought that less than 2 years ago when she got her latest lease, a gold Lincoln MKX. She's a hip lady :)

Every time I asked my mom who was coming to our house for the holidays, I was always so happy to find out that Grandma Lucyk would be there. She just brought a great energy to every room she was in.

Even though she lost her husband at the young age of 57, she never seemed interested in finding someone else (even though we would have supported her). She loved her freedom, being able to do what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it. She went to California, Vegas, Florida, the casino, Yellowstone and New York City, and that's just in the last few years! She spent 3 weeks in January in Florida with her sisters. They went on a swamp tour, walked in the ocean, and (I'd imagine), drank their fair share of red wine. But red wine wasn't always Grandma's favorite, it was black Russian's when I was a kid. I think I'll have one in her honor sometime soon :)

This past Christmas was a typical one with Grandma Lucyk. As usual, she came to our house after the Lucyk Christmas Eve party and stayed with us all of Christmas day. We opened Christmas presents, Grandma sitting patiently by, opening her presents when prompted. We played games, ate good food, and even sat down and watched Ernest Saves Christmas. I fell asleep during the movie, but Grandma stayed awake with Taylor and at the end of the movie, she said, "That's a really funny movie!" endearing her even more to Taylor :) We played one last game of Grandma's favorite game, Hand and Foot, before going to bed. The next morning, we left our house early for a ski trip in Northern Michigan, dropping Grandma off along the way. This was the last time I saw her, but I look back on it with great joy and am thankful that Grandma lived such a good life right up until the time of her death.

Rest in peace, Grandma Lucyk. Or, since I know you will, enjoy heaven for all that it's worth!

Life goes on...

The title of this post says it all, in a lot of ways. First, no real update on Grandma Lucyk. She's still hanging on, and as much as we all aren't ready to say goodbye, we want her to go in peace and to be comfortable, so we eagerly await her being welcomed into heaven to meet her husband, who died 17 years ago last month. One nice side effect of this terrible situation is that we've all been going through all Grandma's old photos. Here are some gems:

This is a beautiful photo the grandma got from a man she went on one date with. He went off to the Korean war shortly after that date and had this painted off of her senior photo and sent it back to her.
Shortly thereafter, she met my grandfather, Jerry Lucyk. This is his senior photo with the note he wrote on the back when he gave it to her:

A few years later, he got his wish! Here are some wedding photos. Janet and Jerry Lucyk, 1956
And many years later, their 5 grandchildren:

Great memories :)

As I said, the title of this post is accurate in many ways. Life goes on for me, too. After spending last Saturday - Wednesday in Michigan with family, I'm back in New York.

I'm still pursuing my 30 Before 30 wholeheartedly. While I can't check anything else off the list yet, I've been taking advantage of some much-needed downtime, especially this long President's Day weekend, to do some reading. I'm working on the top 10 novels of all time, and my current book is To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the book and I'm finally getting into it. I hope to finish it this weekend and to start Pride and Prejudice next.

I've also been reading the Bible (one of my goals is to read it all the way through) and planning my attack on the rest of my list!

Taylor and I are also getting geared up for a big vacation we've had planned for a while. We're traveling to Tampa, FL first to visit my grandparents who live in The Villages, near Ocala. After spending a couple days there, we're flying to the Caribbean to the beautiful Island of Curacao for 5 nights. We're in desperate need of a vacation and can't wait for this!

I'll keep you posted on all of our adventures and any developments.

Update on Grandma

Again, I apologize for the infrequent updates (Steve), but things with my grandma have been all-consuming.

Here's an update. Grandma was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, February 9th at about 1pm after my Uncle Jeff found her unconscious on her kitchen floor. It had been roughly 12 hours since she had a massive stroke and she was clinging to life.

For the first few days in the hospital, she showed modest improvement, but unfortunately as of Sunday the neurologists determined that my beloved grandmother, who is more friend than "Grandma" and one of the most amazing people I know, was really no longer with us. Her body was there, but her mind, her personality, her beautiful spirit, were irrevocably gone. To our immense sadness, we had to come to terms with the fact that it was time to let her go. Tonight she is resting peacefully in a hospital room, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, sisters, and a few close friends. We will all miss her dearly, but we're anxious for her to pass out of this world and into the peace that we know awaits her in heaven.

We love you, Grandma!!
Two of her sons waiting for news in the hallway:
Me and my siblings at the hospital:

We interrupt this quest for awesomeness...

Hey there friends and family. I've already gotten an earful for not crossing things off my list fast enough, so I wanted to make sure I provide an update. Well, this is more of an update for why you won't be getting an update.

This week, my beloved Grandma Lucyk, my dad's mom, had a massive stroke. She has been in the hospital since Wednesday morning and I'm leaving first thing tomorrow to go to Michigan until Wednesday to be with my family and see Grandma.

She was found on Wednesday at 12:30pm after apparently spending more than 12 hours laying on her kitchen floor after having her stroke. We are so proud of her for holding on through all that, and it gives us tons of confidence that she'll pull through this. She has been sedated since she got to the hospital, but they started to wean her off the sedatives this morning and she has responded really well.

Today, Grandma actually responded to the doctors asking her to squeeze their hands and wiggle her toes, hence this lovely little photo collage:

Here's another nice collage that my Aunt Shari made. Doesn't grandma look beautiful! These were taken at a surprise birthday dinner for her that I was unfortunately unable to attend.
She's been making some progress, which is really great, but there's still a lot of uncertainty, so your prayers are much appreciated.

More gems from the vault

My friend Jonathan was inspired by my first 30 before 30 check-off to go searching through his old photos. I'm happy to share these gems from my (much) younger days.

Jon and I, taken on graduation night, June 2001
Fall 2001, Hemingway Hall, Kissam Quad, Vanderbilt University
Fall 2001, Reinke Hall, Kissam Quad, Vanderbilt University. Kim, we look SO young!!