Alice Loretta Hickok Werner
3/5/1920~6/20/2008
She's the first person close to me to die. She's always been present in my life. And now she's not here anymore. That's a very strange feeling. Sad. Kind of confusing.
My whole life it has been "GG and Pop". They were synonimous with each other. They always went together. It was never just GG. Or just Pop. It was always "GG and Pop". It was like one word. GGandPop. This weekend I kept having to correct myself from saying it.
Now it's just Pop.
That makes me so unbelievably sad for him. I'm just the grandkid. I've only know her for 30 years. But he's been part of the duo for nearly 74 years. And now it's just him. How lonely that must feel. How hard this must be for him.
He misses her. So much. He could hardly talk about her without breaking into sobs. So I just sat there and let him cry and cried with him. I love my Pop more than I can say. He's always been my hero. My heart literally hurts for him right now.
GG was like no one else I've ever known. She was feisty and spunky and confident and generous and adventurous and so very vibrant. She had a mouth on her which cracked me up. She loved us all to pieces. I am so thankful I got to have her in my life.
I was asked to put together a slideshow for her memorial so I got to go through all her albums. I've never done that before. When I went to visit it was usually for a limited amount of time and I wanted to spend it with her and Pop. But this weekend I flipped my way through years and years of photographic treasure. I realized that my love of pictures came from my GG.
She had so many albums. All lovingly put together. She had written on the front or back of almost every picture. Little notes. Sometimes it was just who was in the photo and the year or location. Often it was funny little details about the photo. It was like she was with me telling me about the pictures. So nice to have a little piece of her there.
I learned things about her. I didn't know she had been a beauty queen when she was young. I knew that Pop was in a motorcycle club, but I didn't know that GG had started her own ladie's motorcycle club.
She had several newspaper clippings in there, too. At one point she had written a letter to the newspaper trying to help a family whose child was dying of cancer. The little girl was a friend of my Aunt Becky when she was young. GG's letter ended up generating enough support to pay for her medical care and a proper burial service after she had died. She had a clipping about her famous fudge. (Everyone loved GG's fudge. It was legendary.) She had her engagement notice in there. And a news article that described her wedding to my Pop like a 1930's Hollywood newsreel.
In almost every photo she was either glamorous or goofy. Both trademark traits of hers. Open-mouthed chewed-food shots. (Typical GG.) And gorgeous two-piece swimsuit shots. It was such a treasure to me. It was GG and her personality laid out on paper.
I wanted to share a few of my favorites as a little memorial to her. So people can glimpse a little peice of this wonderfully fun, sassy, loving woman.
GG, I miss you already.
