Mom, sister, aunt, grandma Elvera, Elvie, Ve, Aunt VeVe – whatever we called her she was a symbol of the greatest generation and our unfailing matriarch. When my dad died, she was sure she would be following him shortly. She made me promise to follow her final requests down to the red dress she would wear. Well, that was in 1986, the red dress didn’t survive, but she went on to live till her 102th year. All of us have experienced her love and, let’s face it, her bossiness. Even in her later years as her wonderful caregivers will agree, if Elvera said no, it meant no. In her last years, yes, her dementia years, there were sparkling lucid moments. One day I gave her some wonderful news. I said, “Guess what Mommy. Your granddaughter Nicole is having a baby.” She looked up at me, her face lit up with a big smile, and she clapped her hands. I then asked her, “What should we name him?” She gave me a quizical look, paused to think, and said, “It’s up to her. It’s her baby.” During these last difficult years, I want to believe that her dementia also gave her comfort. Before her was a moving picture that only she could see. The people she loved and lost paraded before her – mama and papa, Louie, Anna, Victor, Annie, Alfred, Hugo and always her beloved Frank, who was either cooking or coming home late from work. Lately, in going over her papers, I found a letter from 1940 that she had sent to a friend. In that letter she tells of a day Frank came home on a rare leave from Camp Drum. She wrote that on that Saturday April 18th she wanted to keep him to herself a little while knowing his mother and sisters would want to monopolize their only brother. She wrote that after a brief nap, he came to see me, and then commenced our great parade. We paraded to his relatives, we paraded to Chinatown and Greenwich Village, but, most and best of all , we paraded to each other and before each other and around each other so that I could hardly see me without seeing him. Today, it is my greatest hope that they are parading above together in heaven. BY HER DAUGHTER