My grandmother, Nona Sonja, passed away at 6:14pm on New Year's Day.  She passed very peacefully, listening to music from the Alps as night time fell around us.

Nona Sonja was one of a kind. Funny, fearless, and independent. She was born in Italy, 1930, so she was just a teenager when the war came and lost her older sister to the fighting. She met her husband at the end of the war, and came to America a few years later to live in Texas. (Texas impressed her very much, so that whenever I drive too close to a car she would tell me how they would show their gun if a car came too close without passing.)

Texas (and the marriage) did not last very long, so Nona Sonja went off to New York to make her own path. She worked multiple jobs at once to support her mother and daughter, and living in the same apartment for 65 years. She had a career in the airline industry and spent many years at Air India, but also worked at the post office whenever she could. She also volunteered at the NY Botanical Gardens for 20 years. My earliest memories of her are of visiting the gardens and going to Jones Beach - she was always teaching us to value nature. After retirement, she found new purpose in her life by volunteering at WNET/Thirteen and showing up rain or shine.

This all changed in mid-2019 when a series of health issues came together with her apartment building burning down. Our first plan was for she and I to run away to Italy to get her some healthcare -- haha, you can tell that we're related because I was all for this! But after another week it became clear that I wouldn't be able to manage this on my own. Luckily, my sister, Jasmina, stepped in to care for Nona in Huntsville... and I joined them several months later.

My grandmother and I developed a routine of going sightseeing every week. Her favorite things to see were the rocket ships at the NASA center (she would get big eyes and exclaim how amazing humans are that they can build such impressive things), and the lake with geese and ducks at the university. She could look at birds for hours, and we sometimes did if we had some french fries and coffee with us to tide us over until dinner time.  We had the best summer, telling jokes and growing a vegetable garden and driving all over the place. This was the best gift for me, all the memories we made.

As the weather faded from summer to autumn to winter, so did Nona Sonja's health. We had health aides and nurses visiting all the time, but in the end Nona succumbed to the breast cancer she had been fighting for several years.

Nona's favorite  joke this year:
Q: What are the two best day in a sailor's life?
A: The day he buys his boat, and the day he sells it!

There are some additional photos in the gallery.