HERTHA KOWCUN

Condolences & Memories (1 entries)

• For Grandma Kowcun’s funeral, Thursday, November 29, 2012 Dear Family and Friends, How I wish I could be with you in person as we all mourn for Hertha Kowcun –my grandma. And thank you for reading these thoughts at Grandma’s funeral service or later at her reception, wherever you think best. It has been said that “funerals are not really for the dead-they are for the living.” This is a time to be together. I am sure there is great comfort to be together – to be able to see this room full of people paying their respects to Grandma. My family, Daniel, David and Jonathan wish we could be with you. We are with you in spirit. Has God not promised comfort to those who mourn? And comfort He will give… May God use this time of mourning to draw us together as family, as a loving community. Grandma wasn’t much of an outwardly religious person. Raised up and confirmed in the Lutheran church, she later attended Anglican services after she married my Grandpa, who was raised Ukrainian Catholic. After her kids grew up, she and Jake stopped going to church regularly. She kept her opinions about faith much to herself and avoided the topic with others, if at all possible. If conversations over religion got heated, she would wander away to the kitchen… Growing up, Grandma would put the food on the table, get everyone to sit up and mutter, “Jake, say grace so we can eat already!” Grandma was very hospitable and I have many good childhood memories of eating in her kitchen with my parents, brother and many times my Uncle Cal. We shared almost all of our big holidays together. If we weren’t at their place, they were at our place. I remember lots of summer picnics and BBQs in their back yard with my aunts and uncles and cousins. I even remember a toilet in the garden filled with dirt and planted flowers! Yes, Grandma was hospitable. She loved having her grandchildren over to her place. My brother and I spent a lot of time there in the summers. Grandma taught me how to play Go Fish and Crazy Eights! And of course Rummy! We spent hours and hours playing cards together. I went to many summer sports camps at the University in Winnipeg, living for a week at a time with a few of my friends at Grandma and Grandpa’s. I could always bring my friends there. When I was really little, I remember walking with her to the movie theatre to see some cartoons. I remember watching her bowl. I remember staying at her place and taking the bus with her downtown to some offices that she would clean in the evenings. She let me help her empty all the ash trays in each of the cubicles. I remember helping her clean inside a church building, too. I still have the set of little doll furniture that she and Grandpa made for me out of tin cans and blue velvet fabric. When I graduated from high school, Grandma made hundreds of blue and yellow Kleenex pom-poms that we used to decorate their van with graduation slogans. Twenty five years ago, in 1987 Grandma gave me a set of white doves to decorate the Christmas trees we used at my wedding. We still use some of those doves on our family’s Christmas tree. Grandma, you died on the 22nd of November, the same day that my oldest son, David turned seventeen. I am sad that for the last 25 years we have lived in BC, in England and in Oregon, so very far away from you… I’m sad that my children, David and Jonathan, didn’t really get the chance to grow up near you and make their own memories of their great-grandma. And I am sad that Alzheimer’s stole your memories from you … Life isn’t very fair sometimes… Yet I am ever so grateful for your love and influence on my life and for the great memories you have left me. Rest in Peace, dear Grandma… I love you, Your Kimmy Kimberly-Dawn Falk (nee Kowcun) - Posted by: Kimberly-Dawn Falk (nee Kowcun) (Grand-daughter) on: Nov 28, 2012