Alison Golway Jaurique

On Friday, March 20, 2009, at three o'clock in the afternoon (the holy hour) our beloved Alison Golway Jaurique returned home to be with her Lord and Savior.

Our mother grew up in Fresno, California. She graduated from Hoover High School in 1966. She then went on to college at Fresno State and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts. Later in Life she also went back to school, earning many credits towards a degree in Child Art Psychology, and finished with a Masters in Education.

During her college years she had a myriad of unique jobs, which included working as a lumberjack in the Sierras, and studying the habits of garbage collectors, riding along with them on their route through Fresno (which she said was one of her favorite jobs). After college she spent a year as a stewardess at Continental Airlines. (Her father Hugh always said that it was her "year in The Service").

After her time with the airlines, she moved to Los Angeles, to work as a graphic artist for a major department store. She lived there for about a year and then moved back to Fresno where she worked for Abbey Furniture and met her future husband, Tony Jaurique. At Abbey she built the foundation of knowledge she used to begin her Interior Design business "On An Ironing Board" in her tiny apartment. Like all avenues of art and design, our mother had enormous natural talent and impeccable taste, and her business quickly became a success and afforded her a complete new lifestyle.

In 1980 she began her family with the birth of her daughter Lauren, and in 1985, she married the love of her life, Tony, and gained two more daughters, Leanna and Rhonda, and then gave birth to the twins, Christopher and Taylor in 1987. In 1988, she moved to Carmel, California, with her family, and a few years later began working with her husband to design and select finishes for the homes he built through his custom home business.

Once her younger children were school-aged, she began a devoted career as a humanitarian, deeply involved with the Carmel Presbyterian Church and traveling to Russia to bring school supplies and assistance to less fortunate children. She also worked with the church as part of a knitting program to send hats and clothing to babies in need. Later she also joined the Model UN and became involved in their efforts around the world through her local chapter at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Our mother was a movie star, our north star and our heart. She was born an angel, close to fairies, to God, to the true and deep source of love in the universe, to all that is good and divine and childlike and beautiful. The most important thing to remember about her is that she was different. She was kind beyond the realm of most people's capacity. She was never judgmental, and found the good in everyone she met. She closed her last journal entry, with the refrain that she and her brother Stuart shared: "to be in the world, but not of it". She was not of the world. Our mother had a sparkle, and a gentle aura that separated her from the sober and literal restraints of the world. She was our very own Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and also Beatrix Potter and A. A. Milne.

She was a quiet elegant beauty. She lit up any room, without saying a word, and without ever realizing her effect. She had the kind of innate classic charm, and elegance that the world reveres, but only few carry. She was also an intent observer, a highly talented artist, an intellectual and a powerful dreamer. She had the God given talent of transforming anything life gave her into something beautiful...spaces, canvases, journals, paper and pencils, a tiny dish of trinkets, balls of yarn.

Her artistry knew no bounds. Her drawings were perfect representations, and seemed to float off the page...She liked to draw still-lifes, human poses, skeletal perspectives, and she also loved to doodle, to create lively stick people, playful colorful landscapes, old-fashioned caricatures, and giant vibrant abstract paintings of two-headed ladies, geometric designs, organic shapes and swirling skies... There wasn't anything she couldn't create. If they had met, she would have had Martha Stewart's greatest envy.

Libraries were cathedrals to our mother. Our mother truly believed that "The unexamined life is not worth living", and she read thousands of books throughout her life. A pile of books by her bed, and rooms with full bookcases were always a fixture in her home.

We will miss you mom, as we would miss a missing limb. It is so hard to breathe without you. It is so hard to think of our future without you, to eat, to smile, to be... without you. Every minute reminds us of you, every heartbeat of our own aches for you. We will never be the same without you, and we wonder how the world can spin without you...but we will live without you...to make you proud. You are our angel, we look upward and think of you sitting on the moon, with your angel-fairy wings, philosophizing with God, sprinkling magic dust over our dreams while we sleep, and sending us whispers of love and wisdom while we wake. Thank you for the magnificence you gave us. Thank you for the awe and the stinging beauty you left with us.

Our mother was preceded in passing by her father, Hugh Golway; and her brother, Stuart Golway.

She is survived by her mother, Peggi Golway; her husband, Anthony Jaurique; her children, Leanna Jaurique-Quintana, age 40 and her husband Gary, Rhonda Beck age 37 and her husband Brian, Lauren Klein-Baltazar age 29 and her husband Daryl, Christopher Golway-Jaurique age 21, and Taylor Golway-Jaurique age 21; her grandchildren, Aryanna Quintana, Leyton and Bryson Beck; her mother-in-law Patricia Jaurique; her brother, Jim Golway and his wife Sheryl; her sister-in-law, Janet Golway; her sister-in-law, Carol DiBuduo and her husband Jerry. She is also survived by her many loving nieces, nephews and great nieces.

A Memorial Service will be held at Westminister Presbyterian Church, 50 E. Santa Ana Avenue (West of Palm Avenue) in Fresno, on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 1:00 p.m. Entombment will be in St. Peter's Cemetery at 11:30 a.m.

A second Memorial Service will be held in Carmel on Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 11:30 a.m. at Carmel Presbyterian Church, Carmel by the Sea, California.

In honor of our mother's love for books and her life-long pursuit of knowledge, contributions may be made in her name to the Carmel Children's Public Library, or your own local public library at Carmel Children's Library, c-o Carmel Public Library Foundation, P.O. Box 2042, Carmel, Ca. 93921.

JAY CHAPEL 1121 Roberts Avenue Madera, Ca. (559)674-8814 www.jaychapel.com