Until we meet again

As many of you know, my family lost our Mom, Gram, Great Gram, Sister, Aunt, friend - Veronica Guczwa - the Matriarch to the Guczwa/Dudek Clans. She was just shy of her 96th Birthday by two and a half weeks. She had been on her way to St. Pat's church where she was hit by a vehicle as she crossed the street. She was air lifted to St. Joseph Hospital in Ypsilanti with multiple trauma injuries. After much discussion, prayers and tears, our family sent her on her way to the Lord. She would not have gotten better, would not have been herself - the Vernie that we all knew and loved.

Although I know there are tremendous amounts of pictures of her with other family members, I picked out a very few that I have to share with you. This photo was taken at her Granddaughter's wedding, Kathy and Dave Scott in August of 2008. Although many are missing, we were a large family of Herman and Vernie -

Six children & spouses (Mary Ann/Jerome Blaszak; Frank/Carolyn Guczwa; Ginny/Tom Nocella; John/Ruth Guczwa' Theresa/Phil LaVoy and Steven/Rena Guczwa);

Thirteen grandchildren/spouses (John/Shelley Blaszak; Drew/Becky Blaszak; Kathy/Dave Scott; Chris/John Odette; Tammy/Matt Carter; Tim/Laura Guczwa; Matt/Shell Nocella; Mark/Sarah Nocella; Erik Guczwa; Beth/Dan Murrell; Kevin/Kerry LaVoy; Greg LaVoy; Nick/Julie LaVoy)

and then twenty Great-grandchildren (Lance, Garek, Cooper Blaszak; Nick Kramer; Katelyn, Emily Scott; Mikayla, Ben Odette; Brooke, Juliann, Grady Carter; Noah, Tanner, Meghan Guczwa; Benjamin Nocella; Breana, Macy Nocella; Maddisen, Mason Murrell & Caleb LaVoy.

Mom loved her brother, Mike Dudek, seen here with wife, Nancy. He met her in heaven the day after Christmas, 2010 - what a reunion that had to have been.
Well known for her pierogies, she came to Oregon in August, 2008 and helped me make them. Now, I wrote down the recipe, but will have to decipher my notes to make sure they are the way she made them. I do know that frying them in butter - lots of butter - was the only way to eat them.
Always learning, Gram & Greg walked the beach with Phil & I, trying to figure out how those sand dollars came to be and what a clam "show" looked like.
And bowling...scoring her 200 game on her 94th birthday - well, what a wonderful day that turned out to be.
She liked meeting new people and once you met her, she was your friend. Here she meets the Honorable Robert Young, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Once in a life-time.
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren were the loves of her life. Here she talks to Caleb, her 20th Great-Grandchild. I am sure she was telling him many wise things.

But since December 17th, we have had heavy hearts and a major task ahead of us. Mary Ann, Ginny and I spent many hours in the house taking care of business. It is the Guczwa homestead and although it was a wonderful home to our family, it is only a house now with items that need to find new homes.
We found items of fun - this hat that who knows where it came from - thanks, Ginny, we needed to laugh that day.
Keys, keys and more keys. Ginny found the largest - actually only a half of a key - probably from a display of some sort.
We put most of the keys in this container. There were OLD skeletal keys that perhaps still fit the front two doors to the house; John Deere keys to many tractors both here and long gone; keys to the motor home; house in Arizona that is no longer in the family; and probably keys from other places that were found somewhere along the way.
We also found a few treasures - Mom's wedding dress. Mary Ann held it up first for her picture.
This is the back.
Ginny shares the front top and the crown to her veil. The brown coloring is from the beads that are still attached. That is the only coloring on it - it is in marvelous shape...thanks to the acid-free blue paper that it was stored in.
We also found this God Bless our Home written in Polish. I didn't get pictures to share here, but we also found a large print of her First Communion picture; her certificate of completion of the eighth grade, and of course, their wedding pictures in color and beautiful frames.
This was a favorite pose of hers in many of the family photos we came across, being silly and loving the attention. My suitcase was full so I will have to share more of these when I get back to MI and can collect a few more.

So, to you, MOM.....We all have heavy hearts filled with sadness that you are gone. We had a wonderful life with you, and all the memories will get us through the next stages of life. You will be missed by not only us, your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but by all the friends you left behind. We only hope that we have turned out to be the children you wanted us to be and will continue to be the loving family you shared by example with us. God Bless you, we love you .... until we meet again.