The Celebration of a Life

Some of my blog readers who have been with me from when I started up this blog in June 2013, may remember when I wrote the post titled 'Leaving a Legacy for our Children'. I wrote then about my group of friends, who had known each other since the 1970s, deciding to meet together around the anniversary of the death of another of our friends to celebrate her life with her daughter and little granddaughter. We continued the tradition again this year and had a lovely day celebrating the life of our old friend and marvelling at her strength and resilience as she faced life's ups and downs.

Our friend's granddaughter is just an absolute delight and we felt sad that she would never remember her grandma who left this world when she was just a bub. However, I am sure her mother will make sure she knows all about her strong and loving grandma who held her as a baby and tried to hang onto life for as long as she could in order to spend as much time with her as was possible.

 In the end though, her frail body succumbed to the insidious and deadly cancer that had attacked her once extremely healthy body a number of years before.

 

She had been an avid collector of everything which would now be considered 'vintage' but back in the 1970s when she was scouring Op Shops for old crockery etc. it wasn't a fashionable pastime like it is now.

 

 When her girls were preparing her house for sale we asked if we could each have a piece of crockery to remember her by...

...so it was fitting that we drank out of her cups at morning tea while we shared our memories of her life. 

 

Her collection was quite massive and her house was tastefully cluttered with the most delicate cups, plates and nick-knacks from a bygone era. 

She passed on her love of  the 'old and sometimes quirky' to her daughter who, in turn, now has every corner of her home full of interesting little treasures that I found to be quite intriguing.

 Just look at this old sewing machine!

 We had a lovely day and talked and ate and then talked some more. As we parted I was reminded once more not only of the importance of the legacy we leave our children but also of the importance of having good friends in life who will faithfully stand by us through good and bad times.