Beverly Joan Finlay Conaway

Beverly Conaway passed away July 18th 2010 at 8:10pm. While spending SO much time in the hospital I was having the hardest time thinking of any memories that I had with my Grandma, which just made me more upset. I feel like as soon as she passed all of the memories came flooding back.



When I was about 6 or 7 we all went camping at little lava lake. I remember Grandma took me out on the boat to try and teach me how to fish. Mostly she was fishing and I was talking (as usual). I remember we had been sitting there for awhile and all of a sudden I saw something moving across the water. Then I realized... it was a water snake. I started freaking out, because like most children, I didnt like snakes. Grandma told to sit down and breathe, that animals arent there to hurt you, they are just trying to live their lives. Looking back at it now, its such a Grandma thing to say. She was such of lover of all things living.

When I was about 14 I was leaving to go to a movie and suddenly I got really sick. I was puking and had a really high fever. Grandma was over having dinner with my parents and she brought me upstairs and put me in bed and fed me ice chips and brought me applesauce. She was always so nuturing. She always knew how to make me feel better.

She was always so take charge. When I had a kidney infection I went to the ER and my mom was in Greece so I called the next best person. Grandma. She wasn't in town but she immediately called my uncle Eric who came to the hospital and made fun of me. At least he distracted me from the pain! LOL

One time Grandma was over at the house and Gwynne was writing a paper about horses and she wasnt sure where to start, so Grandma sat down and started rattling off all of these different things she could write about horses. I remember being so amazed that she knew so much about horses. When I asked her how she knew so much, she said "I've lived a lot." That was the understatement of the year. Grandma knew EVERYTHING about ANYTHING!!!!

One year, my whole family went camping at the beach and the people in the camping spot next to us had very LOUD obnoxious kids that woke up at like 6am!! Now, if you don't already know... my family is loud and I mean LOUD (my friends always tell me how loud I am, its because if you want to be heard in my family, you have to scream). We were all up late one night talking (yelling) around the fire and the neighbors complained that their children were trying to sleep. So Grandma basically told them that she didnt care because they were loud when WE were trying to sleep. Well.... words were had and eventually the security showed up (or maybe it was the police?) and ALMOST kicked us out of the campsite!!! Grandma didn't take crap from ANYONE!



No one believes me when I tell them stories about my crazy family. We are all loud, obnoxious, and hilarious. My family really is this way because of my flamboyant Grandma. I get my personality, hands, sence of humor, hand writing, artistic skills, fashion sense, and love of all things shiney from her.



I find it close to impossible to describe what an amazing woman she was. I'm not just saying this because she is my Grandma, she truely was incredible. She was so giving and courageous.

XoXo,
Stephanie