Spirts Having Flown: Tribute to my Grandmother

Ivanka in 2000, at our wedding

It's been ten years since this picture was taken. Ivanka is now 90 years old. She's always been one of these really strong Bulgarian women. Her spirit has already flown though. She's not able to eat anymore, only drinking fluids, succumbing to that vandal 'old age' and a cancer that nothing can be done about. She can't recognize us anymore and likely won't make it more than a few days. She still shows some signs of her strong personality, my mother tells me over the phone, then as I hold the phone I see our daughter Maya holding her ground to her mother, the next generation of strong women establishing themselves. Ivanka and Maya are kindred spirits. They are extremely stubborn. I mean extremely and that goes for my mom Dora, my sister Ana and my wife Amanda. Four generations of stubborn women. They're also the most loving people I know. I'll miss Ivanka as we now lose one of those generations.

This morning I took the kids to work which is becoming a Saturday morning habbit of ours. We go to the Tesco Express shop that has chocolate donuts. Then we drive to my work to eat them there with our friend Quoc (the only other lunatic who is at work on Saturday at 7am). Then we sit, eat our brakefast, and I write a couple of emails while the kids do artwork in my office or run around the place screaming mad.

This morning I realized how much fun it is for the kids as I remembered when I would join my grandmother Ivanka on Saturday mornings in Bulgaria as she would go to some office to clean them (mid 70's). While she was cleaning I would walk around the offices looking for something fun to do. Must have been about Julian's age. I remember seeing pictures on the wall, black and white pictures glorifying communism by showing pictures of Gagarin's space voyage. Mesmerizing stuff really. Then we would go home and Ivanka would make lunch.

Ivanka lived through the fall of the socialist regime in Bulgaria, then became a US Baba in 1988 or so with my grandfather when my father brought them to the States. They never really learned English, but they never really complained either. My grandmother always took good care of my grandfather so that he had little to do. This resulted in a very fragile grandfather Dimiter so we lost him to strokes and dementia in 1995. Her strength would carry Ivanka for another 15 years and she always dreamed of joining Dimiter. Now her spirit has.

Her body is frail and failing, but she's already gone. The reason I write this here on the kids' blog is so that you can appreciate what kind of women you face when you meet any of the Petkov or Presley women. Ivanka's spirit has flown but it guides her descendents. Farewell Baba Ivanka. I'll miss you.

Ivanka passed away Aug. 6th, 2010