My best friend Sandra is a Christmas baby. Yesterday she had lunch with her family, then came to us for birthday dinner & wines and spent the night. Her dog Bruno and Faith sort of ignore each other in a friendly way – Faith isn’t well socialised to put it bluntly. Today Tony took her to Hawera to visit a few family graves. This journal page, using some of my more recent supplies, is about our friendship.
Mum was born on 30 June 1924 at Bethany Home in Auckland, and stayed with her mother till she has a toddler. We don’t know why her mother, Angela, eventually had to give her up. I wish we had met her, she sounds such a character. We are fortunate to know Angela through her son John (Mum’s half-brother) and his family.
Mum would have been 94 today, not an age she had any great desire to get to. Mum didn’t romanticize old age; she talked about it being hard work and used to say that Dad, who died suddenly at 65 while out fishing, “got it exactly right, but a decade too soon”. When Mum died in 2012 she was ready to leave this earth, and we let her go with love.
Mum shared her birth date with John’s ex-wife Liz – birthday twins, as I called them. So happy birthday Liz. I’m sure Mum is watching over us all.
Happy birthday Mum – you are loved and missed, but released with love too.
Cath Sheard 