My dear Lily,
Before I say good-bye to you, I want to thank those who have come today to send you to your eternal resting place.
To tell you the truth, I feel like you're…. from somewhere, upstairs, peeking at us and looking at us all like you've always done for your whole life.
You know, my ole’ lady, that you've always been the best woman, mother, grandmother for all of us who are now sending you off with a tremendous pain in our hearts on your eternal journey.
You were proud when you defended your children, gentle with your grandchildren, more generous than any ordinary person could be, unrestricted in giving your love to your Princesses, and to the rest of us.
You were always with everyone in their darkest and hardest moments and you watched them with your worrying eyes and with your soothing comfort tried to make everyone feel better- especially your granddaughters that you dearly called Deki, Ninchi and Kichana.
You have made a lot of sacrifices and made much effort until you found your lost relatives, the niece of Tea and nephew of Aco, with whom you grew up and lost every contact after the unfortunate War of 1992.
Now that you've finally found them and spent the last year visiting them, a cruel illness has taken you and not given you the chance to continue your relationship. It was the grave illness that took you away from continuing to nurture that relationship, even before it gave you the chance to fight, although you were a fighter all your life.
I miss you “my ole’ lady! Who's going to call me “ole Man” now and ask me what are we going to have lunch, and shall we go shopping, as our grandchildren maybe don’t have anything sweet so we should buy it?
Believe me, I didn't know how much space you took in my heart, and now that I've lost you forever, there's a huge void in my wounded heart.
To our children, Adis and Arijana with her daughters Dea, Evelina and Kiana you have taken away a huge part of their souls. And it's hard to describe how much your Son-in-law Velin and daughter-in-law, Sarah with Scarlett, miss you not to mention the rest of your family in Zagreb and mine at Walnut Creek and all our friends and family in Banja Luka.
My dear ole’ lady, I have to say that you were undeserving of all that pain and suffering that you went through during the time of your illness and we could not calmly look at your troubles in the insufferable struggle against this undesirable and vicious disease, and that was hard for all of us, our grandchildren, our children , the son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and friends and relatives who sent you personal messages of warm wellbeing wishes and words of support through public posts, especially "Face book" and many personal messages.
You can be proud as there are many tears being cried all over the world wherever our friends are, who have appreciated and even today appreciate your huge heart and honesty.
We miss you all, dear Babi, to us your closest, to the neighbors, and to all the friends you've grown up with, and blossomed into the beautiful woman that you did, which I met 50 years ago, a wife, a mother, and finally Babi.
I am proud that I have spent 50 years with you and that together with your enormous sacrifice we are all on our feet again.
If tears could build the stairs, and the memories a line to heaven, I'd climb up to you with our family and bring you back to us.
May the Canadian soil be light on you.
My dear Lily.