Tag: Cecelia Malinowski Moskal

Up front, I want to thank the staff at Anna Maria in Aurora and those nurses at
HopeBridge Hospice. You took such great care of my Grandmother and you’re doing
God’s work. Thank you. To my aunts and uncles, and especially to my Mother and
Father, and especially my Mom, who tirelessly and patiently helped to care for Grandma
in her twilight years, thank you. Thank you.

And I want to say to my Grandfather, John Moskal – Grandpa, Grams loved you so
much. She took such great care of you for so many years, and it’s clear how much you
loved her back, and how much you cared for her, as well. What a wonderful example you
two set for us all. Gramps, I have to say too, how heroic and inspirational it has been to
see you in these last couple of weeks, how you rallied to her side…it’s just been such an
extraordinary expression of love. Grams may have left your side, but her example lives
on in us, and we will be there for you.

So I’d like to tell you a little bit about my grandmother’s life – which is really a testament
to her Polish heritage, her Catholic faith, and our nation’s Greatest Generation, a
generation that stands for selflessness and sacrifice. Grandma embodied each one of these
identities with great pride, passing along many Polish-Catholic traditions – I think about
placek and pierogies – and she always put others before herself.

Let me take you back 87 years, when little Cecelia was born, the sixth of seven children,
to her parents “ZHAjze” and “Busia” Malinowski. Ceil had a happy childhood, raised in
a Polish community on the East side of Buffalo, until one day she caught the eye of a
young baseball prospect, the handsome John “Bucky” Moskal. Her love with Grandpa
grew from a quick kiss in the front-hall closet of Malinowski household, to a wedding at
St. Luke’s Church on August 12th, 1950, and ultimately, would blossom into a marriage
of 64 years. Sixty four years.

Over that time, John and Ceil would create quite a legacy: four children, Carol, David,
Mary-Jane, and Marty…as a family they would move from parts of New York and Ohio,
to Montgomery, Alabama, for a 35-year stretch, before ultimately returning to Ohio.
Their children would start families of their own and today there are ten grandchildren, all
of whom are here today, and now there are nine great-grandchildren, with the tenth greatgrandchild
set to make his worldly debut in March.

Grams never wavered in her faith, she was active in the church, and she sang beautifully
in the choir for many years. She especially loved Christmas Mass: O Holy Night was her
favorite song and every one of her children and grandchildren can remember joining in
with her to harmonize (as if I could harmonize with her) – of course, by the end there
wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

In so many ways, Grams was a renaissance woman. She was Martha Stewart before there
was a Martha Stewart. When I asked my cousins what they remembered most about her, I
had so many responses, I could go on for days, but it’s clear just how multi-dimensional
she was, and how much she impacted our lives. She was a competitor, she was feisty, and
she loved to golf – I can remember playing dozens of rounds of golf with Grandma as a
kid and I mean this literally, Grandma never once missed a fairway, ever. She enjoyed
playing cards, she laughed often, and had a great sense of humor; an outstanding
seamstress, a wonderful cook and baker, Grams made the best chocolate chip cookies and
her pierogies could have won awards.

A voracious reader, she devoured everything from biographies to fiction and went
through every Reader’s Digest cover to cover. She was inquisitive and interesting and fun
and collected so many friends through the years – oh, and she loved a good, smoky
scotch too, the smokier the better. But most of all, when I think of my Grandmother, I
think of the devotion to her family, and I think of love. Her love is very much among us
now, and in fact, her love is her greatest legacy.

To me, and to most of us in the family, one moment in time captured her essence, and the
example she leaves for us all better than any other. Twenty years ago, when Grandpa
retired, the four Moskal children and their spouses got together and presented Grandpa
and Grandma with a gift certificate to play several golf courses on the Robert Trent Jones
Golf Trail in Alabama. They also presented some spending money to use along the way.
Upon seeing the money, Grandma broke into tears and said nine words: “I don’t want
your money, I want your love.” It was spontaneous and brilliant and she meant every
word of it. What a lesson: I don’t want your money, I want your love.

We celebrate her life today, for Ceil lived a full and beautiful and faith-filled life. I
believe that Grandma today is in the hands of a loving God, that her faith carried her over
to the other side. And I also believe – I think that this morning Grandma woke up, she
walked out to a golf course greener than Augusta National on a glorious
morning…fairways lined with rose bushes, roses blooming as big as any of the beautiful
roses that Grandpa used to grow; she put down a Titleist, teed it up, and of course hit the
ball right down the middle. And I can just hear Grandma laughing that laugh of hers, and
just walking along enjoying the sunshine.