Monique Alexander was a caregiver to everyone she knew – family, friends and even strangers – through her part-time work as a home health aide.
But mostly, she was a proud and delighted grandmother of three, whom she doted on.
"She loved her grandkids and her family. She just loved taking care of people," said her daughter, Casey Maccarone, 26, who lived with her mother on Hertel Avenue in North Buffalo. "She was just the sweetest person."
Maccarone and her family are mourning Alexander, 52, who died outside on Christmas Eve in the bitter cold, biting winds and blowing snow of the weekend blizzard.
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"I don't know why she went out in the storm," Maccarone said. "We had food. I don’t know if she wanted to grab something else before everything closed."
A man who contacted Maccarone late Saturday had found Alexander's body partly buried in the snow on Delaware Avenue, not far away, and carried it to the nearby King of Diamonds jewelry store, where he laid her down under the awning so she would be found later by the National Guard.
"He saw my mother in the snow, he picked her up, and placed her under the awning," Maccarone said through flowing tears. "He tried to put her body somewhere where they could find her."
Maccarone said her mother had gone out around 2 p.m., but she didn't realize it until later. She "started panicking," posted a desperate plea for help on a Facebook group chat about the storm at around 6:30 p.m., and heard back from the man 15 minutes later.
"She was already gone. If it wasn't for him calling, I wouldn't have known as fast as I did," Maccarone said. "He was just going to bring her dead body to the shelter, but he couldn’t carry her, so he just placed her under the awning of King of Diamonds so she wouldn’t be buried in the snow."
Maccarone was at home with her two kids and her niece, while her 31-year-old brother was stranded on the East Side.
"We were all waiting for her to come home," she said. "I can't believe she's gone."
Alexander was born and raised in Buffalo, although she and her family had moved to Germany at one point because her stepfather was in the military, and they also lived in Alabama for a while to take care of a sick uncle.
"But she always came back to Buffalo," Maccarone said.
Family was central to her, but she also worked as a housekeeper at the Curtiss Hotel and as a home care aide through FreedomCare. And she proudly ran Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, as a successful recovering addict herself, her daughter said.
"She was a beautiful lady. She was just always the family caregiver. She always took care of everyone," Maccarone said. "She was very much a huge help to everyone. She touched so many lives."
