In Memorium: Angela W. Siegel June 28, 1914 to December 13, 2007

Yesterday at the age of 93, my grandmother, Angela Siegel, passed away. She was the daughter of David and Honey Welcher, a sister to Ruby and Charlotte. She was wife to Archie Siegel, mother of Elliot and Melodee, grandmother to David, Mollie, Marc and myself, and great-grandmother to Nico and Dana.

She traveled the world at a time when many people didn't, visiting Europe, Russia, South America. Always turned out in the finest, she loved fashion and art. Somehow she was always a little ahead of her time. Her house is filled with the artists she loved, artists she found in Mexico when traveling with my grandfather. Art that in later years could bring tears to her eyes, paintings she referred to as friends, memories of the life she had lived and the man she had loved.

She was a complicated woman, a woman of contradictions. Challenging and cutting with her words, she still made sure that her family was never in need. Her relationships with her family were difficult and I don't think any one of us could say that it had always been easy and joyful with her. But yet she was loved. And she had friends that were there for her when our family was too far away to get there in a matter of minutes. For that I am grateful.

My grandmother watched her parents, her sisters and her husband die before her. But she also welcomed into the world two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She always told me that we should never mourn her, that her life had been well lived and she had no regrets. At the end of it all, the only thing she really wanted was to be with her Archie. After almost 30 years without him, that time has come.

This is for Angel, my grandmother. Here is to a life fully lived and a man truly loved. There are no regrets and while I am sad that she is no longer with me, I am glad that I can celebrate an extraordinary life.