It is difficult to sum up 65 years in a few minutes, but I think I can do it some justice by starting with four words: Mother, Friend, Lover, Care giver.

I.   Mother

Being a good mother was the most important thing in life to Becky. She was determined to be a great mother and she did a fantastic job at it. From our first child Adam, through Erin and to Meredith she cherished and nourished them as babies, sustained then through childhood and encouraged them to grow into independent, loving adults. Becky juggled motherhood, the intense work of an ICU nurse, the house, pets, and a husband who traveled often; but nothing ever came between her and her children. She attended as many sporting events, band concerts and other events our children were in as her job allowed. She cared for them through sickness and disappointments. She loved cooking and baking and provided home cooked meals, cookies cakes, pies – her made from scratch apple and peach pies were unbelievable. I was always amazed she did all this was holding down a full time nursing job. I certainly never could.

Recently Becky’s extended her commitment to motherhood to help our daughter Erin with our granddaughter Lily. When I suggested we could afford to rent a place further south so Becky could avoid the Morgantown winter, and I was thinking Raleigh, she quickly found a great townhouse on a lake a half mile from Erin, Chris and Lily. It was a strange twist of fate that the Lily Pad, as we call it, became her place to battle cancer and Erin ended up helping Becky. It did give Becky the chance to spend a lot of time of during her last months loving her granddaughter.

II.  Friend

Before we were husband and wife we were friends. I first noticed Becky at a fraternity party and thought I would really like to date that cute girl. Soon afterword we were set up on a date by some mutual friends. I knew who she was, but she thought I was going to be my friend Paul Kizakevich and was disappointed. However, I must have been at least okay on the first date, because she accepted a second and third and so on. Through the next few years we found we had a lot in common. We enjoyed partying (just a bit), the same music, taking hikes, days at the beach, sled riding, cross country skiing, etc. Basically Becky enjoyed outdoor activities as I did so we hit it off. In the BC era – “before children”– we had a number of vacation adventures; with our friends BJ and Eric visiting Kiz and Sally in Miami (during the winter of course), St. John’s in the Virgin Islands, driving and camping all over Nova Scotia and many weekend camping trips and hiking mountains and trails all over New England. Our friendship gave us a great basis to move on to and wife.

II.  Lover

Okay, this is not going to stray into R or X rated territory. Yes, Becky was obviously my lover for over 40 years, but I am referring to Becky’s love of life. As I mentioned she loved physical activities and visiting new places. Besides the trips I mentioned she spent a summer with her good friend BJ traveling on a rail pass all over Europe. They had a fantastic time. With our children we had a number of great camping trips when they were young – Bar Harbor, Maine; Rocky Mt. National Park; canoeing in the Adirondacks, the Thousand Islands and a number of places in West Virginia. As the children left and went to college and work we still got together for trips, although we changed to hotels, lodges and houses mostly because at this point Becky proclaimed “I don’t want to sleep on the ground anymore”. So we went to Florida to stay with my parents a few times; the Seattle area - staying in the San Juan Islands and hiking Mt. Rainer & Mt. St Helens, Flagstaff Arizona where she saw the Grand Canyon which she said “I am so happy to be here. I never thought I’d make it here”. She accompanied me on business trips to San Diego, Monterey, Boulder, DC and Savannah. She loved Savannah – as do I and the kids – great place for food and craft beers.

Enough of trips. Other loves of her life. Well of course there was me, but I digress. She also loved caring for shelter animals. She started with cats and over our first 15 years together we usually had one or two cats. Unfortunately I developed an allergy to cats, so she switched to dogs. We tried out a couple in Cincinnati – one we had to take back when he showed a passion for knocking down neighborhood children which she thought was just play. In Morgantown we had three – Abby a very alpha female black lab - nobody messed with the kids when Abby was around. Then there was Cody an incredibly easy going large mutt. The kids used to use him as a pillow when he laid on the floor. One day I came home and Becky introduced me to Max a small corgi, Jack Russel mix that had had a rough life. We used to refer to Cody and Max as Pinky and the Brain, with Max the Brain getting Cody to reach food and other things on counters Max could never get and getting Cody into other mischief.

Finally, I am just briefly going to mention her love of knitting. Ever since I knew her she did knitting. When we first went together she knitted me a sweater and a scarf. Now I am an above average sized guy; but I must have been even bigger in her eyes. The scarf was good 9 feet long and the sweater, well the arms hung way beyond my hands. But I wore them anyway and especially loved the scarf. She improved her knitting as we had children making hats, scarves and sweaters that fit them.  She got into it with a passion in the last few years after she retired; but some of my children will speak of that so I will stop here.

II.  Caregiver

Most of you know that Becky was a nurse for 42 years. What you may not know is that she wanted to work in the most challenging nursing areas. When we first were going together she started in an Emergency room, but found that boring. So she moved to Intensive Care nursing. She worked in ICU units mostly, but also worked in a Burn Unit, in Cardiac Care units, and Surgical Care units. A nurse is obviously a caregiver, but I believe Becky went the extra mile. She told me on a number of occasions how she had to argue with a doctor about applying a treatment that might extend the patient’s life, but would make the patient feel miserable and reduce the quality of life. She was always focused on the patient as a person

At home Becky was obviously the caregiver taking care of all the kid’s colds, injuries, trips to the emergency room and a few surgeries. On those occasions when we had to go to the hospital Becky always had an in as a lot of the staff – nurses, doctors and even aides – knew her; so we got great care.  

Finally, (you thought I’d never finish huh?) I’d mention Becky as my caregiver. It was a big joke in the family that when I had a cold or an allergy attack Becky would say to the kids or friends “Oh, Mike has a cold and thinks he’s dying” or she would say to me “Come on Mike suck it up I work in intensive care were people really are in terrible shape!”.  Yeah, I got some of that; but she still made me homemade soup, got me soda and aspirin, etc. She even encouraged me to take naps. She was my care giver for years, so I actually loved being her caregiver the last few months.

And that’s all I have.  I am not saying farewell to Becky because she will live on in my memories and my heart.