Grazina Boga - a tribute to my Aunt

Easter 1973 - Norwalk, CT - Aunt Grazina and her Mom (my grandmother)

Yesterday was a sad day, we were informed that our Aunt Grazina had passed away.

Gražina is a Lithuanian feminine given name. The name was created by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz for the main character of his 1823 poem Grażyna. The name is derived from the Lithuanian adjective gražus, meaning "pretty", "beautiful".                            ( Source: wikipedia )

Aunt Grazina was the youngest of three siblings, my Mom (Bea) is the oldest and Uncle Kasey the middle child.  Aunt Grazina was born in France in 1945 at a time when the family had fled from Russian occupied Lithuania.   They had escaped to France and my Grandmother worked as a translator during the war, she spoke Russian, Lithuanian and French (all the while churning out one more little Boga, Grazina!!!).

Aunt Gracie received her professional nursing licence in New York City and was also involved in research with the Rockefeller University where she is cited for her contributions in these articles :

Structural Protein Markers in the Avian Oncoviruses - 1977
http://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC516007&blobtype=pdf

Independent regulation of endogenous and exogenous avian RNA tumor virus genes - 1976
http://www.pnas.org/content/73/7/2259.full.pdf

Detection of Avian Tumor Virus RNA in Uninfected Chicken Embryo Cells - 1973
http://jvi.asm.org/content/11/2/157.full.pdf 

I only recently found these articles that were linked to my Aunt and I find it absolutely wild that she was working on avian 'flu' research and 35 years later I possibly had contracted H1N1 also known as the Bird flu or Avian Flu.  I was very sick for six weeks back in 2010 while living in Shanghai.  Although my Dr. never made a formal diagnosis he concluded that I had either contracted Bird Flu or Whooping Cough.  And since H1N1 (another name for the Bird Flu) was quite prevalent that year in Shanghai and I was an avid wet market shopper - where the live chickens were sold and carried the "flu" we can logically assume, it probably was Avian Flu.  So my Aunt was working on cutting edge research way back when, what a gal!!

While I don't have many memories of my Aunt Grazina I know that she lived on her own terms and never let anyone push her around.  I would like to think she is a product of the 60's woman's movement, strong, independent and taking the world on, on her own terms.

She was a loving and caring woman and she lived with my Grandmother, her mom, for 12+ years.  They shared an apartment together in NYC on 10th Avenue near Columbus Circle in an apartment overlooking the Hudson River - pretty swanky!!  Grazina was the caregiver for my Grandmother when she was struck with ovarian cancer in 1981. A loving and kind woman watching over her mother is who we knew and loved.

One strange memory I have of my Aunt Grazina is her telling me once that you don't need soap to wash the dishes, that hot water is more than enough.  I am not sure why I have that memory, I certainly wasn't doing too many dishes at age 7, which is about the last time I saw her.   Although sad we never got to know each other I am comforted that she lived the way she wanted and brooked no argument with anyone when confronted with conversations which may have included phrasing such as - "you should do this or you should do that", she just said no thank you firmly and went on her own happy independent way.

While we are saddened by the loss of a loving sister and Aunt we are also comforted in the fact that she is together with her Mom and Dad and the Angels in Heaven.

Here are a few pictures of our happy times together.