Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The happiest of times and the saddest of times

On 17th March 1952, my parents were married.  60 years later - last Saturday to be exact - we celebrated with family and friends at our place.  It was a lovely afternoon.  They have 4 children, 23 grandchildren, and currently 7 great grandchildren.

One of the bridal party was also there - my aunt.  She was only 12 at the time of the wedding.  I wish I had a digital copy of the wedding photo.  Must organise that!

Anyway, we had a lovely day.  Really enjoyed catching up with everyone.

A lovely lady who we met as a result of becoming foster parents died on Saturday night.  Marj is the grandmother of the brother of two of our boys - if that makes any sense.  She has taken on the role of grandmother to the boys and has been Nana to all of our children.  And, personally, I don't think anyone can have too many Nanas in their lives.

She was a very social lady and very committed to helping people.  Always lots of fun to be around and the kids would call in and see her and have great games of Rummy-O and other card games.  She celebrated all of our family milestones with us and was god mother to both Chris and Jai.  Over the last 12 months and particularly in the last 6, her health was failing.

Last week we went to see her to be told that she was in hospital.  What they didn't tell us was that she had fallen and broken her nose and smashed her face very badly.  She died on Saturday night.  Aged 81.  I'm sorry the boys didn't get to say a final goodbye, but glad their last meeting with her was when she looked just like their Nana.

Trying to find some photos - but haven't got them on computer with me.  This was Nana at Jai's birthday party last year.

Just when Jai was to cut the cake - Nana only just sneaks in, but I think you can see the love she had for "her boys" shining on her face.

On Sunday, eldest DD played in her first netball carnival.  This was the first real games they have played as a team, so at the start they were completely wiped out.  But as they day went on, there was lots of learning happening and they improved with each game - finally winning the last very comfortably!  And DD scored two goals.  Nice.

Sunday morning we got the news about Nana.  Actually got the call while DD was playing.  With the help of the other Mums, I had a little time away from the courts to get myself together so that I could keep the news from DD.  She had such a great day - but was very sad when I told her, so knew that it had been the right thing to do.  

I'm back up in Bundaberg with eldest DS.  This time we're back to see if he can get his driver's licence.  The queue is shorter here - he tried when he was living up here, but wasn't successful.  This time we will do some more lessons in the car he'll have the test in.  That was what went wrong before - he messed up the clutch as he wasn't used to that type of car.  

I had great plans of lots of sewing while I was up here - but that isn't going to be quite the way it will happen as we have to travel back for the funeral and then back up again to continue with the driving plan.  

I'm sure I'll have time for the completion of at least one teddy and maybe even finishing the stitching of a Some Kind of Wonderful block!

Cheers



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