When One of the Best Is Gone

This past Thursday, the world lost one of the most amazing people I have every known. It is quite probable that I will never meet another person as dignified, as warm hearted, as kind, as open minded, as strong, and as spirited as Anna Vellbergs. At the age of 89, Anna came to be "one of those people that they don't make anymore." She was born out of the first World War in Latvia, and before the end of the second World War, found herself in a German refugee camp with her children after losing her husband and father in battle with the Russians. One of my favorite stories of hers was about when she saw her first black man. As you might imagine growing up in Latvia in the first couple decades of the Twentieth Century did not provide her with many opportunities to see Africans. When the Americans came to spring people from refugee camps, a black American stuck his head in through a window and (her eyes pop out at this point when she tells the story) "Oh!" She wasn't exactly sure what she'd seen; she was a bit startled. Seems fitting that this would be her introduction to the country she would adopt as her homeland, the United States. She brought her children to the States with the help of missionaries and stayed in southern Illinois for some years. Eventually establishing herself here in Chicago, she worked and lived in the Andersonville neighborhood and Edgewater neighborhoods respectfully for over 50 years. Initially she worked for a Swedish-goods importer but eventually found her way to The Sweden Shop where she worked with my mom for over 15 years. As time went on, she became my sister and I's grandmother by choice. When I was my most questionable or when others may have wondered about what the hell I was doing most, she stuck up for me and said that I would be OK. I am OK now, and I can't help but feel that her faith in me is at least a little responsible for that. Over the past few years she'd been pushing all her spirits up to fight off the ever-intangible, ever-mysterious demon—cancer—which served her one of the greater challenges of her life. While she could take two busses through snow and ice to work at the age of 85, cancer provided something less manageable, something unseeable and unknowable that her spirit, which was normally undoubtable, wavered in the face of. Apparently war was more manageble for her. She grew more cloistered as she grew more ill. I've saw her far less as of late. I wish I could have been there a little over a week ago for her birthday, but she wouldn't want me to regret anything. Her life will go down as an amazing story in my eyes, for she had in strength of spirit what most people would take four lives to develop. These are the ones we must remember.

Anna Vellbergs, Rest in Peace