Thank you

Dear sweet everybody I am going to try and catch up with all of your emails, messages on Twitter or phone calls. But I'm doing my level best to get somewhat drunk at the moment. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is just going to be a terrible day. The immediate family is now all gathered and tomorrow we let mum go. So can I at least take this opportunity to thank you all collectively for your kind words about mum and your support (including all the offers of company and meals). (Actually, I will take you up on those offers, but we just have to get through the next few days. I was struck today about how I need to do more to keep in contact with a bunch of special people.) Mums of course are special, and mine was no exception. She suffered some major disappointments in her life and life at times was pretty hard for her and on her. But she was a natural mother. Totally devoted and completely unremitting and unquestioning in her love. And then she became a grandmother, a great grandmother and a surrogate mother and grandmother. My sister's wonderful children grew up being also cared for by mum as well as Lee, and she featured so prominently in their lives. To them she was always Grammy and she'd always been there for them. For a while three of them, along with Lee, lived with us. Graham was pushed by her all around Maylands and Bayswater and both of them loved every minute. Louisa and Angela enjoyed very close and special relationships with her. Liam come along a bit later and was adored and doted on just like the others. Then came the great grandchildren, Emily, Jasper and Harley. Thankfully she got to visit Harley in Melbourne not so long ago and see him in the flesh. Jasper and Harley are separated by distance, though the larger than life personality of Jasper would boom down the phone as he sang her some of his favourite songs. But Emily was close by and the bond they developed was very special. The weekend before last she had her own apron that is kept here on and was making cup cakes with mum......well, she was more eating the batter. Some made it into the oven however. Mum loved kids. She loved Harry, the Chinese boy that friends of ours adopted. And kids loved her. Ray, the little two-year old Japanese boy on one side of us came up to her just a few weeks ago calling her grandma and giving her a kiss on the chin. Little Erin on the other side would talk about taking something over for 'Val'. When Erin got a little baby brother, mum at times plotted about finding some pretext to go over to Luke and Dee's so she could have a cuddle. Then there was a dear friend of mine who, having lost her own mother, liked to describe mum as her surrogate mother. And now I've got to say goodbye and I don't know what I am going to do. I'm going to miss her so much. "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

Posted via email from Garth's posterous