Thanks Mum and Farewell

For those who've asked me for a copy of my talk at the memorial service for Mum on Monday, here is is...

"Mum has been my rock through all the traumas and highlights of my life… the births of my children, deaths of significant people and marriage to Surrey.

Mum was always there at the other end of the phone to listen and to answer even the simplest questions. Then there was email, skype and zoom. Since January it has been during my visits to her in various hospitals and finally her nursing home.

Mum was intelligent and organised and as a school girl I was so proud that my Mum looked so young compared to other mums.

Teaching Home Economics and Textiles was a her great passion. Food was an integral part of her life until the last 20 years or so as she became less and less mobile. She trained as a teacher after leaving school then continued teaching on and off between moving, marrying, having children, supporting Dad as house parents in Child Welfare Homes, and working in the dietician’s unit at Prince Alfred Hospital. Eventually she settled into teaching at St Catherines, Waverley where Desley and I were also students. She continued teaching there until she retired and moved to Gerringong where she and Dad built a house and entertained us all whenever we felt like a beach holiday. 

She was an excellent teacher at home too, and, while always there to guide, allowed us to make our own mistakes and learn from them. She allowed us to be independent and stubborn when needed. 

When I was appointed to my first teaching post she asked… “have you got a small coffee cup, you won’t have time for a large one. Have you written your lesson plan for your first lesson? It does not matter what you teach, just that you teach on your first day”.

Thanks Mum for teaching us both how to be good teachers.

There was always sewing and cooking happening in our home. My earliest memory of sewing with Mum was at the age of 6 when she helped me make a little jacket for my doll from a pattern in a magazine. She had taught me the principles so well that after it was all done and I was left to play, I scaled up the pattern and made a matching jacket for myself. Sewing became a regular shared activity making clothes: doll’s clothes, my clothes and even my wedding dress, bridesmaid’s dress and two going-away outfits. Many crafty things were also created with Dad and Mum’s help using all sorts of materials and techniques.

Thanks Mum for encouraging me to sew.

Mum taught us that home is family, not a building. Growing up we were often without our own home, sometimes just a room or a few rooms which we had to vacate for holidays. 

Mum provided a safe haven for us all during these moves either with extended family (mostly based with her sister Dorothy and their family) and later at Gerringong, or even arriving early at Underhill to have the fire on (Dad’s chore) and dinner cooked (Mum’s chore) for us to sit down to when we arrived after our long drive. 

Thanks Mum for developing our understanding of family.

I had just on 30 addresses until I left home and, of course, Mum was there for most of those. She had at least 8 more addresses after I left home. I remember many sessions with Mum packing and moving. 

When answering questions during a recent hospital stay she records that her many moves meant she lost touch with friends she made and that family were the people most important to her.

Packing up a home and sorting were very important activities for us all. Mum had this sorting skill in abundance. There was always a place for everything and everything in its place. Surrey became quite adept at playing Mum at this game and once, when Mum was putting away groceries at our house she asked “Where do the chips go?”. He promptly answered “In the chip drawer”. Moving furniture also loomed large in this sorting game, even when she had no one around to help. She inherited the ability to move furniture from her mother and this she passed on to both Desley and I.

Thanks Mum for giving us sorting skills to rival Marie Kondo.

Mum tells us she loved singing and was in choirs at school but she rarely sang at home. However, she did encourage both Desley and I to sing. But, like everything, this activity had to have rules…

1. No singing at the dinner table

2. You can sing while you wash up: before you watch TV or even go out.

We would often wash up with a hymn book propped on the window sill so we could sing all the verses, often in harmony. She told me not long ago that at one stage our young neighbour used to help us wash up so she could join in the singing.

In the nursing home over the last few months I would stream Hymns of Praise for her and while I sang quietly with it, she could be seen mouthing the words.

Thanks Mum for encouraging the singing.

Lists and rules loomed large in her life and I sometimes wonder if this idiosyncrasy is learned or if there is actually a gene for it? It has certainly passed down very well to her children, grand children and great grandchildren. 

Thanks Mum for teaching us the skills to make lists and rules.

But then there was the washing up and washing that just had to be done before anything … before TV, before going out, before going to bed, before giving in to being sick or infirm. For her 90th birthday I made Mum a quilt and wrote a poem to go with it. It began … “When the washing up is finished and you’ve cleaned away the dishes…”. Washing up and washing loomed large in our lives at home and still loomed large in her life after we had left. Just last year she was doing her own washing every day! Once I left home the washing up and washing have not been important in my life.

However, as she has aged, some of the skills she passed on to us were used by her less and less. One such was cooking. In later years this passion waned and when I asked her why? … “She did not want to wash up after dinner”.

Thanks Mum for the food but not for the washing up.

Mum comes from a long line of strong women and has produced a long line of strong women in Desley and I and in our daughters and granddaughters. Some people refer to us as independent, great managers, organised… but we learned it from Mum’s great example.

Thanks Mum. I am proud to be your daughter and love you dearly (even though I leave the washing up more than you’d like). My poem with her 90th birthday quilt ended by describing Mum as “... a woman strong and bold”. Or should I have written “bossy and assertive”? These are certainly traits she has passed on to her descendents.

Thank you Mum for being strong and bold and teaching us so many things along the way. Together with Dad, you’ve taught us how to love, how to create a home, and fun, and family, with what we have rather than wishing we had more."