Myrna Yaskulka's family called her the bag lady -- she was rarely without bulging shopping bags from Strawberry and Century 21. To her granddaughters, the clothes they contained were more thrilling than a new Barbie outfit. There was, for instance, her metallic gold raincoat. And her FUBU pantsuit. And leopard-skin everything -- pants, earrings, photo frames.

"Not the sorts of things," said Jay Yaskulka, her son, "you would normally see on a woman her age." But Ms. Yaskulka, 59 and a size 8, was as chic as a downtown hipster. She was such an ardent shopper that store managers called her about new shipments. She was confident enough to wear outrageous things, like pink rhinestone-studded sunglasses, and carry it off.

She commuted from Staten Island to her secretarial job at Fred Alger Management in 1 World Trade Center. Often, Mr. Yaskulka passed beneath her windows when he took Brianna, 8, and Shannon, 4, to the city. "When we drove by the World Trade Center," he said, "they would look up at the 93rd floor and yell, `Hi, Grandma!' "

   9/11: The Reckoning

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — An unopened wedding anniversary card sits on Jay Yaskulka's table. The Port Richmond resident's mother, Myrna Yaskulka, is among the missing in the World Trade Center disaster. She was an executive secretary for Fred Alger Management, an investment company on the 93rd floor of 1 World Trade Center. Jay last spoke to his mother the night before the attack. The card arrived two days later. "I am waiting to open it," he said. "It will be her last words to me. She never just picked out any old card. She made sure it said just the right thing." Jay's brother, Brian, had also spoken to Mrs. Yaskulka on the night of Sept. 10. She had purchased tickets for the California resident to come to New York this week, so he could visit with her and attend a convention. He used the airline tickets, but not for their intended purpose. Brian and his children went to the World Trade Center with Mrs. Yaskulka last year during the children's first visit to New York. Jay's children knew that when they passed the World Trade Center, they were getting closer to his mother's office a few blocks away. As they passed, they would wave at the Trade Center, hoping their grandmother would see them from her office. "She had a great summer," recalled Jay. "She had a tan, for the first time in years. She was so excited. She went from translucent to tan. She went somewhere every weekend — the pool, Atlantic City. Every Monday I knew she'd call and tell me what the weekend was like. And she would want to know how I was doing because I had back surgery and have been out of work." "She talked to all of us two or three times a week," added Brian. Born in Brooklyn, the 59-year-old grandmother moved to New Dorp in 1981. After returning to Brooklyn for a few years, she moved back to Staten Island, living in New Springville and West Brighton in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. She settled in New Dorp in 1991. A member of Parents Without Partners, Mrs. Yaskulka enjoyed social dancing, Broadway shows and fashion. Before working as an executive secretary, she was employed as a legal secretary and also worked in retail. "She loved anything with clothes and any kind of accessories — sunglasses, hats, bags," said her son, Brian. For the young-at-heart grandmother, visiting Brian and her other son, Hal, in California offered her a chance to see the latest. "She loved going there and going to Venice Beach to see the sideshow of people," Brian said. "She loved shopping for things she couldn't get here." One pair of sunglasses was particularly memorable — they were pink rhinestone glasses reminiscent of an Elton John costume. "But with my mother wearing them you didn't think anything of it. She wore outrageous things, but she looked normal," added Jay. "She had a lot of charisma," said Brian. "Anyone who met her remembered her." Whenever she would visit her grandchildren, her arrival would set off the cry, "What do you have in the bag?" "She always had something in the bag for them," Jay said. The Yaskulka family was hit hard by tragedy 20 years ago, too, when Mrs. Yaskulka's husband, Stuart, was murdered in Brooklyn during a robbery. "It has brought all of that back," said Brian Yaskulka. "Your parents go to work and they don't come home. It's different with an illness or even a sudden heart attack. They have both had violent deaths." "Even though she went through tough times, she made her own good time," said Brian Yaskulka. In addition to her three sons, Jay, Brian and Hal, surviving are her mother, Adele Pearl; four brothers, Jeffrey, Ivan, Philip and Shawn Pearl; three sisters, Lorna Kaye, Ina Stanley and Bonnie Shimel, and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be tomorrow at 2 p.m. in Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, West Brighton.