Vicky Lee Slaughter - Online Memorial Website

Our nicknames mom gave us. Mine, Vanessa...Vanasty, Tara...Tarable, Ian...Ianpossible. I loved calling mom collect so I could say Vanasty, she laughed every time

   Where do I begin with the memories of my BEAUTIFUL Aunt Vicky...:  I remember playing dress up in her dance recital costumes, all the weekends I spent at her house and  all the times she took care of me (seems like I was there just about every weekend growing up) , waking up early in the morning to find Vicky and Pat listening to their old records and singing along while they cooked breakfast, the time Vicky saved me from choking (well, actually I don't remember that one as much as Vicky often reminded me of it :), singing the soundtrack of Evita together in the car at the top of our lungs (we must of drove Hall crazy),sitting at her kitchen table in Martinsburg  talking for hours , the tree in front of the house in Martinsburg that she was so proud of . There's so many more. No one will forget her smile and her many hugs will stay with me forever.
    One of my last memory is of the hour long conversation I had with Vicky about a week and a half before she passed. She told me how much she loved me and how much she wanted to see me.
           Vicky was TRULY a beautiful person inside and out (this seems ridiculous to write since everyone who knew her, knows this). One of the biggest lessons she taught me was to never be afraid to try and do new things (She got me to try Chinese food for the first time when I was 10 and she got me to try a grasshopper- the drink of course).  I learned from her to live life to the fullest and always see the best in everything.
        She told me before she died, how much she wanted to be at my wedding, but worried she wouldn't make it. I repeat now what I told her then, " Don't worry, YOU WILL be there".
         

This is not so much a specific memory as it is an observation I made of my sister Vicky at one of the lowest points in her life. And that observation was that of her amazing strength...and courage. When we first spoke following her diagnosis, she talked of the shock she felt at the doctor's words...as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Then she quickly followed that up with "but I am not afraid to die...I just don't WANT to die and I worry about everyone I'll leave behind."  What strength. What courage! And brave she was until the end...trying to keep up with her studies, her work...and even her Italian lessons. I have seen strength like hers exactly three times in my life. Once when I lost my mother, once when I lost Vicky and once when I looked into the eyes of Vicky's children just after she died. You need not worry Sis...they are pillars of stone...and are going to be just fine!

My mother was also known to many as Bebop. All her grandchildren and all the other children in the family called her this. She was proud of her nickname Bebop and I can remember the time that started it all.
Tre' is her first grandchild and we were living with her and Hal when the Great Comet of 1997 was visible. It was also known as Hale-Bopp. Tre' was only one year old at the time and she was watching for the comet through her large picture window in the living room saying Hale-Bopp over and over. Tre' loved my mom so much that he just stared at her and laughed every time that she said it. She said it so much that he tried to mimic her by saying Bebop, Bebop. So from that night on he knew her as Bebop and started the name for her that she loved so much.

Vicky's first true love was probably dancing. Anyone who saw her dance could immediately tell that it was much more than a hobby or even method of staying fit for her.  It was a passion.  Vicky danced from the time she was very young and even taught dance for some time at The Stage Door in Huntington. She danced in Sleeping Beauty, the Nutcracker and West Side Story among other classics. Attached is a pic of our very own "sleeping beauty."