Condolence: My Grandma Juneau died on Wednesday and I am still processing, but I wanted to share some thoughts.

Beverley "Bev" Juneau was from Canada, and she was a nurse, which allowed her to move to the U.S. and travel. She even lived in the Washington area for a while and worked at Johns Hopkins. She would tell me about coming into town to see the cherry blossoms. I've always admired her sense of adventure - how she was able to pick up and move to a new country and explore. Until her health declined this past year, she would call me every couple weeks and we would write letters. I'm thankful that Geoff helped me record the voicemails I had from her - a year's worth of well-wishes on every major holiday from Valentine's Day to my birthday and wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We both loved romance novels, stickers, cards, and cheesy Hallmark movies. Once when I told her that I missed everyone living so far away, she told me, "A rolling stone gathers no moss but it does gain polish."

One other gift she left me - in 1985, my parents went on a weekend trip to San Francisco. She watched me and kept a journal of what we did over the three days, written in my "voice" as an 11-month-old. Apparently, we laughed a lot, visited her friends, and ate mashed bananas. It's a wonderful snapshot in time.

I think sometimes people think that when you move away from your family and live miles and miles away that there's something wrong with them or you. That's not the situation in my case. One thing that was wonderful about my grandma is that she understood both the desire to go out and seek new adventures and also the sense of homesickness and loneliness that comes with it. She always made an effort to make me feel loved and when we would talk, she would say, "I'm so proud of you, Grace" and "Thank you so much for calling, it is so wonderful to hear from you." She was a brilliant, beautiful, classic, strong woman and I will miss her very much.

Condolence: One of my favorite people in the world passed away this week.
My grandmother, Beverley Juneau, had a soft, sweet voice, strong hands, and unending love for her family. She was 87 when she passed.

I grew up hearing tales of her youth as the oldest of three in Canada’s mining country. She was so proud of her heritage and would tell us stories of spending time with all her relations at the family cottages on the Gatineau River in Low, Quebec.
It was clear she loved her home country and her family – most especially her siblings and her parents – with an almost fervent admiration.

Grandma always lamented the fact that she was shy and not as outgoing as the rest of her family. But to those who knew her, there was no question of her adventurous spirit and bravery.
She left her family home when she was a young woman to study nursing at Montreal General in Montreal, Quebec. From nursing school, she traveled across the United States working in various hospitals from Washington D.C. to California.

She would tell us stories of her and her fellow nurses getting off a night shift at 2 a.m. and going out on the town, because they were too wired to go home to bed. Old pictures show the beauty that she was, even though Grandma was always too modest to think so.

She raised my mother and uncle as a single mother, working full time as a nurse. She worked the majority of her career, more than 30 years, as a nurse for the Irving Independent School District.

Grandma never lost touch with her roots, and through her, her children and grandchildren have had the awesome privilege of knowing and staying close with her family in Canada. I will never forget the stories she told of growing up in the North; or all the memories we made attending family reunions every five years.

As a young girl, I talked with Grandma almost every day, whether in person or on the phone. My childhood is littered with memories of her: many of everyday happenings, but also of holidays, milestones and special occasions.
She never got tired of watching me as a young girl dance in the living room to The Lion King soundtrack or The Beatles’ No. 1 Hits.
Being the proper woman she was, Grandma taught me how to pat my mouth dry with a napkin after drinking the milk left over in my cereal bowl. She adored Winnie the Pooh and especially Piglet. She loved soft pink, shimmery nail polish and hated her nails, which she said were destined to always be short with rough ridges in them…but she still let me paint them. She wore long, sparkly necklaces and seasonal-themed broaches. She curled her hair every night with mesh curlers and baby pink pins. She wore long, flowery, button-up dresses with peppermints and strawberry candies and Kleenex constantly stuffed in the pockets.

She gave the best hugs and always knew exactly how to run her fingers through my hair to make me feel safe and so loved.

Christmas to me still means sitting at the top of the stairs with my brothers and Grandma, waiting for Mom and Dad to call down and tell us Santa had come and gone and left us presents.
I remember Grandma watching my brothers and me and our friends sorting Halloween candy on the living room floor; a lover of school supplies, she stocked us with notebooks and pencil cases and erasers in the fall.

Grandma always remembered birthdays and would send cards – always decorated with stickers – on Halloween and Valentine’s Day and every occasion you could think of. Sometimes in college she would just send a note telling you how much she loved you, and in the letter she would tuck a five dollar bill, insisting you use it for something fun and not for laundry or school supplies, gas or ramen noodles.

I feel so privileged that Grandma lived so close to me and my brothers growing up; she knew my friends and they knew her, and she was a constant fixture at our extracurricular events.
In middle school, my friends referred to her as my fairy grandma because of the glitter she always wore on her cheeks.
In college, my friends knew her as Spaghetti Grandma because of a hilarious voicemail she left me once about ordering spaghetti at Olive Garden on a cold winter day.
No matter what version of Grandma they knew, all my friends loved her. She always remembered their names and never forgot to ask about their families and their careers and their children.
When I was in college, Grandma and I would talk once or twice a week on the phone, and that tradition continued as I moved first across the state for work, then to North Carolina after getting married.

She cared so deeply about me and my brothers and cousins. She knew exactly how to make us feel special. Every time you ended a conversation with her, she would spend five minutes telling you how proud you made her. When we got married, she took in our spouses like they were her own grandchildren and she loved them just as fiercely. She remained one of my best friends until the end.

I am so grateful that Grandma got to meet my daughter, who came into this world in June, before she passed away. I cannot wait to tell Louisa how much she was anticipated and how fervently she was loved, even if just for a short time, by her great grandmother.

I will always admire my grandma, not only for the amazing grandmother she was, but for the brave woman she was, moving to the United States and raising her family in Texas. I’ll always admire how amazing she was at keeping in touch with her family in Canada, her children and grandchildren living in different states, and the friends she made as a young woman and nurse.
I admire how she could make mere acquaintances feel special by remembering their names and details about their lives. I’ll admire her stubbornness and her adventurous spirit and the way she never cursed, but said “Oh my hat!” or “Oh, boo!” to exclaim shock and surprise.

I’ll miss the way her eyes sparkled and how her hands, crooked with arthritis but still strong to the end, always made me feel loved. In short, I will just miss her.

Grandma, thanks for teaching me that no matter how far we travel or where we live, we all see the same moon. I like to believe that even though we cannot see you anymore, you’re still looking at the moon with us.

My heart will forever carry you in it.

Beverley Juneau
May 17, 1930 – August 23, 2017

*and for all of you who are reading this and have made it this far, thank you for sticking around* ❤️

Condolence: My family and the Cooke family were next-door neighbors in Canada (both Pamour and Noranda)and close friends for over half a century, so Bev as the eldest Cooke daughter, was known to me from the beginning of my life. We had a great long-distance phone conversation last Christmas season, one of many, and I always appreciated her lively humor and sweetness. My sympathies to the family, and my thanks for many happy memories.

Condolence: Jon, I am so sorry for your loss. I'm not sure if you remember me but we started school together from 1st grade at TJ Lee through MacArthur. you and your family are in my prayers.