Celebrating the life of
Lily Vanderbilt
10 Feb 1929 - 22 Dec 2020Family and friends
Join Memories to request access to contribute your cherished photos, videos, and stories to Lily's memorial with others who loved them.
Join MemoriesFamily and friends
Join Memories to request access to contribute your cherished photos, videos, and stories to Lily's memorial with others who loved them.
Join MemoriesPamela Vanderbilt Lily Daisy Gadea Linares was born to Jose Alejandro Lazaro Linares Chavez, M.D., and Maria Louisa Gadea Veliz de Linares.
Amelia Vanderbilt In one of my earliest memories, I am two and some years old, and two heads taller than my grandmother. We’re walking next to the post office, her on the sidewalk, me on the retaining wall alongside it, hand in hand. The memory is oversaturated with sunshine, the sound of traffic, and the spring in my step. Tippy-toeing along the edge, the rough feel of her work-worn hands enveloping mine; I don’t remember anything really happening, I only remember how I feel- powerful, tall, BIG, all the things you want to feel when you’re two, and you’re getting another sibling very, very soon. I feel confident, ready, safe, and I know I only feel that way because my grandma is holding my hand. This is how she appears in most of my memories; alongside, observant, protecting, uplifting. She championed our adventures, our achieving, our joy. She came to stay with us after our parents divorced, and her quiet presence moves through my childhood recollections, frictionless and graceful, swirled into the foundation of my early years like rarest marble. I see her waving from the side of the pool at swim lessons; I see her sipping coffee at the kitchen table at Motor Avenue; I can hear all the baby Spanish phrases she used to guard and guide us: Abroche su cinteron. Lavarse los manos. Se Acabo? Suffisciente? She took us to the park with just as much fanfare as she took us to Alaska and Italy. She facilitated travel and experiences, ease and comfort, and then would slip into the background to observe us all live and run and laugh. Forever present, her attention never wavering. But when she called for your attention- she had this way of emphasizing something that my father inherited. She would lean forward and with her full body, PUNCTUATE a word by striking the object in front of her, most often the leg crossed daintily in front of her. My father, her son, almost always emphasizes the object of a sentence. “And THAT is why”, with one finger tamping down the table before him with each iteratation. Grandma Lily would emphasize the subject. “MELI”, she would often start sentences, an open palm forcefully rested upon her thigh. I always knew to listen then. “You HAFF to remember”. But I don’t. I wish I did Remember. So rarely she spoke, she was always doing. Cooking, cleaning, repairing, moving, laughing. I can hear her voice, I can hear her laugh, but when she bade me remember, I didn’t. I can only hope that what she said is braided into my bones. That I don’t need to remember because this body of mine that she helped build knows. On the day she died, I took myself to her church- Estarbucks. Luckily, Mysteriously, Divinely, I had enough reward points to get myself a “Tall Coffee”, with milk, 3 raw sugars, and a little dash of the chocolate powder. Her coffee order I “Remember”. And while sipped the really, very, too sweet concoction, I drew an interesting parallel. I LOVE coffee. Cafecito was something grandma Lily and I would bond over; we went for Estarbucks together throughout my teen years and into my adulthood. And I learned how she took her coffee, and eventually took great pride in doing it for her, just the way she liked it. Now, as an adult, learning someone’s coffee order is how I show my love. I know how my entire quarantine pod takes their coffee, I know how my mother takes her coffee, how my best friend takes hers, my brother and his wife- if I love you and I’ve woken up in the same house as you at any point in the last ten years, I know how you take your coffee. So, even though she’s gone, even though I don’t “Remember” as much of her as I will want to carry me through the rest of my days without her, I have to believe that she is braided in my bones. Coded deep inside me, I do remember, and my body- that she helped make, that she held aloft when I was too small to walk alone, that she protected, and fed, and celebrated- sings her praises every time I remember to make Ben’s coffee with sweetened cream, and Tyler and Olivia’s with a little almond milk. That, from somewhere, she pours her infinite care and love into me, and I pass her on every morning, every sip. I have to remember. I carry her. I give like her. Luckily, Mysteriously, Divinely, I am of her. I will miss you every day, my grandma. I love you. I love you. I love you so.
