My mom’s twin sister Virginia Craig passed away late last week. I loved Virginia very much, and was glad to have been able to visit her in September. She was my first and best example of how to live a life on your own terms. She was my cool aunt who introduced me to many things – yoga, sushi, photography – and helped foster a love of art and nature. She always gave me gifts and thoughts that I didn’t know I needed. She’ll be missed and forever in my memory.
Virginia Craig
1942 – 2024
Virginia Dell Craig, age 82 of Tallahassee, FL (formerly of Pittsburgh, PA) died peacefully in Big Bend Hospice on November 1, 2024 She is survived by her niece Ellen Maddock (Valerie Gortmaker) , nephew Geoffrey Maddock (Cassandra Stevens), brother-in-law Robert Maddock., and numerous cousins. She is predeceased by her twin sister, Nancy Ann Maddock and parents Willmot and Virginia Dell Craig.
Virginia spent most of her working life at West Penn Hospital as the program director of the Benedum School of Medical Technology. She moved to Tallahassee in 1994 where she worked for Tallahassee Memorial Hospital until her retirement.
Virginia loved to explore the natural world, a nature enthusiast that was able to identify almost any wildflower or butterfly. She took great joy in finding and photographing flowers, spending many days exploring the Apalachicola National Forest and wilds of Florida. She was also a prolific maker of beautiful handmade
books. In her younger years she was an avid yoga practitioner. In her retirement years she volunteered with the American Red Cross and butterfly conservation efforts, and was an member of the Florida Native Plant Society.
A celebration of life will be planned for a later date, I encourage those that loved Virginia to spend a day appreciating the natural world as she did with a sense of wonder and awe. In lieu of flowers, charitable donations can be made to Birdsong Nature Center (www.birdsongnaturecenter.org)
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
– Mary Oliver
