Carol Ann Raffa

Mrs. Raffa was born in Yonkers, NY and attended Transfiguration Catholic Church in Marietta, GA. She was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, and friend to all who knew her. Carol truly enjoyed socializing with family and friends, but most of all caring for and loving her grandchildren. Carol was health-conscience and enjoyed going to Curves with the girls.

Carol is survived by her loving husband Louis Raffa, brother – John Evans, daughters – Pam Raffa and Diane Rice, and her grandchildren – Jordan, Trevor, Jakob, and Jaynie.

In memory of Carol, donations have been requested to be made to the Ovarian Cancer Institute at ovariancancerinstitute.org or you may mail your donation to 960 Johnson Ferry Rd Ste 130 Atlanta, GA 30342.

This is Jaynie's speech from the funeral.

7/26/14

First of all I want to say thank you to my mom for helping me write this and for taking care of my grandma every day through this whole journey. Also I want to thank you all for coming. I know grandma would be happy to see all the people she loved.

To answer the question we’ve all been asking for the past 3 months … Why her? Why the most amazing person you could ever meet? Why the one person who could teach you what true kindness really is? Somebody explained it to me this way. Think of an open field full of beautiful flowers. When you go into the field of flowers, which ones do you pick first? Clearly you would pick the most beautiful and perfect ones first, not the saggy rotten ones. And we all know what eventually happens to flowers you pick… God picked the most beautiful flower we ever knew, and that flower was my grandma.

She was the most incredible, selfless and compassionate woman I have ever met. What makes her so special is even in her final days, she never lost her sense of humor, not once. Here she was struggling to walk with no feeling in her feet but yet she still found a way to crack a joke and put everyone in stitches laughing. She even made funny faces behind my mom’s back and cried “whah” like an impression of a baby crying when her pills got mixed up as we were all standing over her super concerned. In the tensest times which I found truly amazing. She always found a way to lighten the mood.

Grandma had a big sweet tooth. She used to come over to the house and scout out our candy jar and cookies. She has this saying; “if you give sugar, you get sugar”. She taught us how to be sweet, to find the goodness in every person. She made it a point to spread her sugar to everybody she knew, and the greatest part was she was sincere and truly believed there was goodness in every person. You just had to know how to bring it out and she did that gracefully.

Just like my mom, grandma was my teacher. She taught me how to play cards, sew, scrapbook and make Anti-pasta Salad. We would do puzzles together; she helped me learn how to make paper flowers and gave us lectures over a glass of wine, or two. She taught me what a period really was and warned me about boys. Most of all she taught me to love chocolate and how it would always make you feel better when you’re sad. She was a big part of making me who I am today.

Grandma had the biggest heart anyone could ever have. With my hand on her chest as I felt her heart beat for the very last time, I could literally feel how tough her heart really was. She never gave up even though it was her time to rest and for that she will always be my hero. She put up a great fight for us. She always gave, she was a giver.

I think the hardest part is yet to come. As we move forward with our lives and something incredible happens or when we are proud and can’t wait to share and, all we’ll want to do is pick up the phone and call, but we wont be able to. Instead we’ll have to look up to the heavens and know that she is smiling down on us, as proud as could be and being the great listener she always was.

As I’m standing here trying to describe how special she was to me, I’ve realized that it can’t be done. There are no words, it is truly impossible. I love you Grandma and you will always forever live in our hearts