For Nen: 'She leaves a deep hole for such a tiny woman', by Kim Kane - 2017

17 November 2017, St John's, Toorak, Melbourne, Australia

There have been a number of sad moments this week. Opening a Word document, something I do regularly as a writer, and naming it ‘Nen’s Eulogy’ was a shock.

Constantly overriding the autocorrect on my phone -- which still changes the name ‘Ben’ to ‘Nen’, was a shock.

Making the plum pudding for the very first time without Nen – even if it was just having her issue directions from the couch as she did last year -- was a shock.

Seeing Nen’s little dog, Timmy, lying down outside her bedroom.

Throwing out Nen’s favourite shoes, the ‘comfy’ones’ that I had been urging her to replace because, as I kept trying to tell her, no deserving poor would want those…

And writing four simple words, four impossible words, Nen died on Tuesday.

I don’t know when these things will get easier. I don’t know that I want them to. But a little over a week ago, my grandmother sat down to watch the Melbourne Cup, the race that stops the Nation. And this year, it not only stopped the Nation, it also stopped Nen.

Before this week, I don’t think I understood death – that there can be good deaths – and my grandmother lived a fine life, but she had the great luck of a fine death, and for that I will always be exceptionally grateful. Nen did not want to die alone. And she didn’t. She died surrounded by family and flowers.

Over the last week, all of us sat with Nen and we told her how much she had meant to us. We got time to say goodbye and time to say thank you. Nen was able to listen to her interstate grandchildren and to her brother on the phone. She got time to say goodbye to her son and grandson. Mum, T and I took turns to sit by her bed, while the other two lay on a mattress in the bathroom, Harry Potter style. This caused a nurse to look horrified as she peered into the shower cubicle in the dark ‘Just how many relative are in there?’

And even in death, Nen was still fun and funny.

She was able to flirt with her favourite nurse Kai/Kye, even after she failed to recognize her own daughter – charm was in that girl’s DNA.

She hated to be underestimated and she had sass in spades, sass enough to roll her eyes when asked by the neurologist whether she could manage a blink.

When the minister administered last rites in the hospital, Nen sat up and barked ‘I’m fine’.

But this eulogy is not just about Nen’s death, it’s about Nen’s life, it is about a woman who lived as she wished, independently until 91 and a half, fit, elegant, charismatic and full of vim.

Nen was always the grandmother in the tailored pants and a jaunty little hat. She was always chic. She was a grandmother of whom I was immensely proud because people always commented how young and gorgeous she looked.  But of course she was young. Nen was a grandmother in her 40s.  She was younger than me and parenting a married woman who lived a hemisphere away and a teenage son on a surfboard. No wonder she had time to brush her hair.

Nen was a hoarder. Born of war time and ration cards, Nen was of a generation that was environmental because they had done without and never quite trusted it wouldn’t happen again. Consequently, she never threw anything out. Nothing. Need one of those tags that does up a bread bag? Second drawer. There’s a sack of them. 50 years worth of multigrain.

Nen loved a bargain, Nen chased bargains like they were a blood sport. She would buy a pallet of loo paper to get it at 23c a roll. Her house was often full of strange foods she picked up because it was just too hard to go past 24 pink iced donuts with a best before day of 4 November at $2.99. It gave her great pleasure just to watch them going off at that price. Besides, Nen only ever saw best before dates as a guideline rather than a deadline. If it was burnt, scrape it down. If it was mouldy, slice it off, if it was black, toss it in the freezer.

Nen was strong. The thing I learnt through observing Nen, is that you don’t just cruise into 90. You work at it. You still haul your shopping trolley up hill to the shops every day. You still walk the dog at 91 and a half. You are still mattocking your 2000m2 garden at 89. It was therefore fitting that Nen’s granddaughters helped carry her coffin out of the church this morning.

Nen was a health nut before health nuts starred on Instagram. Nen loved a bit of crudité. Bran on cereal. Porridge. All that celery. That celery is genetic. But having monitored treats for her children and then her grandchildren, Nen’s standards really slipped when it came to her great grandchildren and she used to proudly tell me that Tommy calls her ‘Bickie Nenny’. There were no rules at Nen’s. And if there were rules imposed by the parents, Nen overruled them. I would go out of the room and return to find Nen feeding the boys chocolate biscuits, Pringles and cordial half an hour before dinner. As a friend reminded my sister and me yesterday, when Nen took her out to buy a treat as a child in the 80s, they came back with a flannel. That’s the sort of treat the grandmother of my childhood was famous for.

Nen never drove in Melbourne. She had too many ks to clock up on her fitbit. But for those Sydneysiders who have seen Nen drive, there was nothing more nerve-wracking. Or to be more accurate, not seeing Nen drive. Nen was so tiny you actually couldn’t see her behind the wheel. Even propped up on her driving cushion.

Golly gosh. The car’s driving itself! It’s like driving Miss Daisy without Daisy. Look closely and you’d just sees her hands clutching the wheel [action].

Us girls inherited much from Nen: Her wit, her charm, her bunions. One of her greatest lessons, however, was that a job not done properly is not worth doing at all. I still say that as I force my way through unpacking the dishwasher, my tax or the unbearable crusade that is my son’s violin practice. Nen set very high standards for herself and was exacting about others. At no point was this proven more strongly, than one afternoon when I was 16 and constructing my fake ID at the kitchen table. Watching me hash this operation, Nen snapped. ‘Oh I’ll do it’, snatched the pencil from me and expertly executed a federal felony motivated not by the desire to break the law as much as a desire to do the job properly. I was busting to get caught just so I could explain to a magistrate that my grandmother had made it for me. Of course the job was done so properly that ID was inscrutable.

While Nen was an expert at fake ID, and certainly embraced a number of modern ideas, she never quite got on top of technology. On hearing her mobile in her handbag, Nen stopped and said. ‘Oh Mr Whippy’s changed its tune’.

Nen added contacts to her mobile by sticking names on post-it notes to the back of her phone. But she did embrace modern conveniences in fashion and became a terrific fan of both the puffer jacket and pol-ar fleece which got her through her Melbourne winters.

Nen had a terrific sense of the ridiculous. She was still willing to hop in the booster seat to travel in my car at 90. She wore bunny ears with the children at Easter, antlers at Christmas time and she delighted in games like Headbanz in which she had a card stuck to her head and tried to guess whether she was a tomato or a can of condensed milk.

Nen loved children. Any walk with Nen was slow but not because she couldn’t hip flick with the best of the speed walkers for most of her life, but because she would stop to chat to every baby. But Nen loved no babies more than those in her own family and it has been a great privilege to have had her here in Melbourne watching her great grandchildren grow up.

Nen’s commitment to family was decidedly unWASP; she carved her own family culture. She was caring to the very end. Dazed and confused in emergency, she was still caring with every last ounce of strength, comforting my sister as she cried.

Nen’s desire to nurture, came, I suspect, from the trauma of boarding school – she was sent away at 10 and returned home only twice a year. She often spoke of her mother waiting for her four children to arrive on the drive, waiting with her arms outstretched for her brood. I look at our children now and wonder how on earth she did it. This meant that Nen made her home a home in which everybody was cared for. Lean cuisine was not in Nen’s freezer or her vernacular and she never took family for granted. Until very recently, nothing was too much.Nen flew down from Sydney to help mind our children so that I could attend the Sydney Writers Festival. When we were children, she flew down from Sydney to see our school concerts. She sewed navy flannel petticoats for us to wear under our itchy school skirts. She laboured to create beautiful cakes for our birthdays and smocked our party dresses.

Almost two years ago our family toasted Nen for her 90th birthday. We were so lucky to have a grandparent so present in our lives and in the lives of our children and we knew it.

Nen died as she lived. Adored. She leaves a deep hole for such a tiny woman, one I cannot even begin to reconcile.

Darling Nen, our grand matriarch. Vale, farewell. We love you.

xxx

Australian author Kim Kane's award winning time slip novel, 'When the Lyrebird Calls' is dedated to Nen. (Allen & Unwin, 2015)

For Marcelle Loughnan: 'An altogether softer chorus awaits people who work tirelessly to protect and preserve', by son Chris and granddaughter Amy - 2013

16 October 2013, St Mary of the Angels Basilica, Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Chris (son):

Mum. We have come here today to celebrate and honour Marcelle’s, my mum’s, life.

Mum to me was a constant source of love and unconditional support.

She supported me even if I was wrong, my enemies were her enemies.

I think it first dawned on me that she was more than a mother when we visited her sister Mary and our cousins in the country. Together they were like two laughing schoolgirls. Our cousins would say how wonderful she was and could we swap. We would say how wonderful Mary was and could we swap. The truth is they were both wonderful mums.

Mum was getting very tired toward the end but still maintained a dry sense of humour and flashes of that old sparkle in her eyes. Mum was at home in a familiar environment thanks to Gen and Sue’s gift of care to her and the whole family. Thanks Gen and Sue.

Amy my daughter wrote a tribute for me, to her Nana which I would like to share with you.

Amy (granddaughter):

Creating something is difficult. Protecting it can be near impossible.
 
A creator is met with fanfare and accolades.

An altogether softer chorus awaits people who work tirelessly to protect and preserve.

Perhaps because of this, there is a quiet dignity to those who stand guard.

Theirs is a delicate business, which spans a lifetime.

It is difficult to recognize a protector at work, so soft is their guiding hand and light is their touch.

It is only clear eyes that reveal all things treasured and precious are marked
with their fingerprints.
 
Nanna was a potter, a gardener, a grandmother, sister, mother in law, wife, friend and mother to six. More than anything, she taught me the value of taking care of something. She was one of the best protectors I have ever known.
 

Mum knew at the end that the time was coming to rest and stand down.

Thanks mum, I love you and god speed

For Jean Russell Yule: 'I've had fun, darling!', by granddaughter Bec - 2012

27 October, 2012, Anglesea, Victoria, Australia

Hi, I’m Bec, Jean’s first grandchild, and she asked that I say something on this momentous occasion, which is both completely terrifying and an honour! I have really loved having the opportunity to talk with all my cousins about our memories of Nanna, and it has been an honour to try and sort those memories into a speech for her to be proud of...standing here today is the terrifying bit! However, it’s very typical of Nanna that she spent her last hours planning her own funeral, and it has been the lifelong lot of her grandchildren to ‘volunteer’ at her bidding, so here I am. 

A long life deserves a long thank you, and this speech reflects the thoughts and memories of 14 grandchildren and great-grandchildren! Deb, Jenn, Martin and I all called Jean Nanna. Naomi, Jemimah and Hannah knew her as Grandma, Graeme and Diane called her Gran and Jess, Finn, Zoe, Emily and Chloe knew her as Great Nanna Yule. Since I got to choose her name first, she’ll be Nanna today!  

My earliest memories of Nanna are at Highett. Martin and I used to love having sleepovers at Nanna and Grandad’s. She was always good for a packet of juicy fruit (until my chewie ended up in Martin’s very curly hair and Mum laid down a ‘no more gum’ rule!) and she’d let us spend hours playing in the caravan they kept in the driveway. We weren’t so keen on walking to the shops with her as she seemed to stop at every second house so she could introduce her darling grandchildren to the entire suburb. Even at a young age, we recognised Nanna as a social networking maestro. A reflection of this wide friendship circle was the legendary number of christmas cards she received every year, festooning her house with them like a flock of birds perched on the rafters. 

I remember watching Nanna and Grandad play tennis with great energy and discuss the game with even more energy afterwards. It seems like only a couple of years ago that she stopped playing tennis, and she was certainly still having an occasional swim at Pt Roadknight right up until last summer. 

I remember the back verandah of the Highett house suddenly bulging at the seams with exotic, colourful handicrafts as my new ‘cousin’ TRADING PARTNERS arrived. As I travelled through Vietnam and Cambodia recently I was struck by how familiar all the traditional crafts felt, as I’d been surrounded by them from a very young age. Naomi recently helped Nanna to complete a history of Trading Partners, and really enjoyed that special time working together. 

Two events stand out from the Highett years as good examples of who Nanna was in my life. I can’t remember in which order they occurred, but both changed my view of the world. I think I was about 8 or 9 when we arrived at Highett for easter lunch, eager to get our usual stash of chocolate. Nanna greeted us with the exciting news that she had decided to stop buying us easter eggs each year, and instead she would donate the money to refugees who needed it. I can still remember the look of hope in her eye as she watched me struggle to pretend that I agreed this was a great idea, while inwardly screaming NOOOOOOOO! I doubt it was meant as a test, but I felt I’d failed it...this watershed 12 second conversation definitely scarred me for life but, perhaps ironically, I also spent 6 years volunteering at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in my 30s, so her message eventually reached it’s mark! 

Probably around the same time, I couldn’t sleep one night (no doubt dreaming of long-lost easter eggs!) and got up to find Nanna and Grandad watching a movie. Nanna let me stay up to watch it, as she said it was the story of a very important man. I was glued to the screen for the entire movie, totally enthralled by the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer… I don’t remember much about the movie, except for the final scene where he is taken from his cell, marched out to the firing squad and shot in cold blood because he wouldn’t recant his view of God (or something like that!). I’m not sure that this helped me sleep, but it gave me a clear idea of the values my grandparents held dear and again, it’s either scarred me for life or helped to form my views!

Jenn also has fond memories of Highett and reminded me of Nanna’s amazing porridge, which has never been possible to replicate, possibly due to the exotic bonlac she used in it! Nanna loved telling tales of her children and grandchildren, and Jenn in particular provided her with many laughs... she loved telling the story of the day she found Jenn cleaning her pet kangaroo’s teeth with Grandad’s tooth brush, and the look of sheer horror on his face! Eating fresh apricots from the tree and cooking custard will always remind us all of days spent body surfing at Anglesea and nights filled with Mahjong and 500 while scoffing down Nanna’s crystalized ginger stash.

It can’t be said that Nanna was a traditional granny type. Her cooking was functional at best (though she did a cracker roast, with good crumble and custard to follow). However she was totally tuned in to the world around her and always had something to say about politics…as you’d all know she ran for state parliament as a democrat, back when they were still keeping the bastards honest. Politics was about the only topic that could potentially cause arguments, but she was always more than happy to set people straight and help them to see she was undoubtedly right! We all grew up listening to Nanna loudly listing the inadequacies of any given government, and all the ways they could be doing things better. I know I yell at the tv in just the same tone of voice she used!

All of us, including my children, were taught to play our favourite games by Nanna, so look out if any of us challenge you to a game of 500, scrabble, mahjong, chinese checkers or Mastermind. We’ve been trained by the games Ninja, world-renowned for always having a ‘Yule-rule’ to get her out of a tight spot!!! You’d be nearly cleared in Mahjong, and Nanna would cough, say ‘kong’ at some discard, pause, and then triumphantly say ‘and mahjong!’. Competitive to the end, no quarter was given for age or infirmity... If you couldn’t beat her fair and square then you didn’t win!

We’ve done a tally and the only one of us to actually beat Nanna at scrabble in our last game with her was Deb… even at 94 she ran rings around us! Watching her run her hands through her hair until it was a white mohawk as she tried to guess Finn’s mastermind challenge recently is an image that will stay with me forever. She got the answer, too, looking like a gleeful cockatoo! 

However, everything took a back seat to conversation – even scrabble.  “Come and talk to me” she would say, patting the chair beside her. The conversations would be wide-ranging and would always seem to meander, but there would be something she wanted to ask about. She always had her own view but she was also keen to hear another perspective. 

Nanna was supportive of anything and everything we did… but she wasn’t afraid to tell you what she thought, either. When I was 20 I started up a business making and selling silk and ceramic giftware in a shop/studio in Fitzroy. I’ll never forget Nanna saying ‘It’s a lovely thing to do, darling, but when do you think you might get a job that uses your degree?’ Diane remembers often having to bite her tongue as Nanna told her exactly what she thought of a particular behaviour...the more foolhardy among us (Jenn and I for example) were more likely to fight back than bite our tongues but looking back as adults we can all see how much she shaped us as people. She taught us to value our minds and our education, but we all knew she was proud of us no matter what field our accomplishments were achieved in. Hannah says, “as long as I was happy, she was happy” and Jemimah remembers always feeling special when Grandma clapped her hands and said with genuine joy, excitement and interest “Good for you darling girl!” 

This joy, excitement and interest was extended to everyone who was ever brought to visit Nanna. All of our friends, our partners and of course, our children, were always treated with the same enthusiastic welcome and a searching conversation in which Nanna would find out which 6 degrees separated her from this new friend. Those of us who had time to introduce our partners and children to Nanna are aware of the blessing received. She was certainly very special to my husband and children and for that I will be forever grateful. I remember how excited she was when Jess, her first great grandchild was born, and she was just as excited with each of the subsequent great grandchildren to arrive. Her genuine interest in people and their stories meant that she could connect with any age and any background. The circle of children who grew up visiting Nanna Yule far exceeds the bloodline, as is obvious here today and the example of a life lived out in passionate and intelligent action against injustice has shaped our journeys and left a legacy within our family and beyond, that is truly inspiring. 

Nanna was a genuine matriarch, always ready to arrange, organise, connect, bestow and provide love, if not actual food. Although she WAS very generous with her large supply of biscuits so you’d never totally starve if relying on her pantry. As we got our P plates and started driving ourselves to Anglesea we all learned to stop at Freshwater Creek and buy lunch to take with us... it was that or go hungry! While I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, she’d hate us to portray her as a saint, so I will point out that she was also very good at getting cross and I doubt there is a single one of her descendants (or house guests!) who hasn’t received a withering rebuke at least once. This trait became more noticeable in her later years... she definitely felt her time was running out, so if you took your time in a scrabble move you’d get a hurry up glare or worse! 

On one of her last trips to Anglesea Deb stopped at the butchers (how our family of wordsmiths loves the fact the anglesea butcher is called Mr Stab!) and picked up a chicken to roast for dinner. She cooked the chook to perfection but for some reason absolutely massacred the bird when it came time to carve. Nanna finally became so enraged that she banished her from the kitchen with a scathing ‘It’s ridiculous, this carving effort of yours!’ and finished the job herself. Although they laughed about it afterwards, Deb has now sworn off chicken carving for life!

The extended Yule family is way overloaded with forceful Capricorns, and january is always a busy month as we all celebrate our birthdays, but January 20 is the Yule equivalent of the Queen’s birthday, and we all made sure every year that Nanna was fully appreciated on her day. Naomi has the mixed blessing of sharing this birthdate. While this made Nanna very proud, Naomi has spent years having her birthday overshadowed every year by watching never-ending Australian Open tennis games and Nanna getting FAR more birthday cards than her. 

In a speech at her 80th birthday, Martin nicknamed Nanna the telephone exchange, and it is true that not much happened without her acting as the information hotline. In later years the accuracy of the reportage sometimes slipped due to her hearing... when I gave birth to Finn I rang her to let her know and was very surprised to hear her say ‘wonderful news, darling’ and hang up. I later learned that she’d hung up so abruptly in order to ring the rest of the family as quickly as possible. It was lucky that she rang Janie first, because she proudly announced that I had had a baby boy and named him SIN. Jane managed to persuade her that she must have got it wrong before she spread THAT rumour around the entire Yule clan!!

Naomi sums up our collective sense of loss well: “Our family and my life will never be the same now that she’s gone and I honestly don’t know if I will ever not miss her. I am grateful for the time I’ve had with her, the force she has been in my life and the love and acceptance she has always given me. I pray that the rest of us are able to carry on the legacy she has left us, with the grace and energy she had.” I would add to this that I’ll miss her sense of humour, her endless goodwill to all, and her unfailing attempts to change the world for the better. She certainly worked hard to instil these qualities in all of us and we are lucky to have had such a long time with her. As Martin puts it “She managed a special relationship with everyone.  All of the contributors to this speech clearly feel they had a special connection with her. They did. Because people were her priority, especially her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” 

I think all of us feel a very special bond with Pt Roadknight, and that has been inherited from Nanna. Diane put it perfectly: “The trip to Anglesea was always so long for us, coming from Yackandandah, but there was always the same feeling of anticipation and homecoming as we turned down her road, knowing that she would be coming out on to the balcony as we pulled up, waiting to give me a hug and with a roast in the oven. The feeling of warmth I always felt upon arriving at her house and seeing her is something I have never felt anywhere else and I will never forget no matter where I go in the world.” I think wherever Nanna was, her visitors felt that same sense of homecoming, but Pt Roadknight particularly will always feel like a place we can find Nanna when we need her.

Martin’s children Emily and Chloe want to say this: “We love you great nanna, and we miss you now you’re in the sky.  Hopefully you can play with our Pa.”  

My daughter Zoe wants me to read the letter she wrote to Great Nanna after her death. 

Dear Great Nanna,
I loved having you around.
I was lucky to have you.
I wish you were here with us.
Every time I went to your house I would smile when I saw you waving.
It was ANGELsea to me because it had your spirit.
But now you’re going to the real ANGELsea.
Great Nanna I love you. 

This letter was cremated with Nanna last week, and I know it will make her very happy to have it with her as a reminder of how much we all loved her and how much we will miss her.

Having been lucky enough to get the chance to actually say goodbye to Nanna I’d like to finish with our last conversation. As Finn sobbed into her arms and told her how much he loved her she gave him a big Great Nanna squeeze and said ‘Oh, darling, no-one can live forever!’ which made me realise just how much I hadn’t believed that of her. If anyone was going to carry on energetically running things it would be Nanna! 

Mike took the kids out and I realised that she already knew most of what I had to say...a 90th birthday speech and a deathbed speech are worryingly similar apparently! I started to tell her how much she has always inspired me with her passion for human rights, and how she has always known how to do the right thing seemingly effortlessly and it was all getting very earnest and embarrassing when she interrupted me with a glint in her eye and said ‘... and I’ve had FUN, darling!’ and we laughed and hugged and I realised that she had got it in one. My enduring memories of Nanna will always be of her laughing at something, playing games with the joy and enthusiasm of a child and being excited by absolutely everything. What a gift she was.

Thank you.

For Alice Leonards: 'I'm all for you' - by granddaughter Clare Wright

Cleveland, Ohio. 2007

ALICE ELIZABETH SIZER LEONARDS KRISS WYGANT LEONARDS

 We loved our grandmother.

Grams, as she was known to us, had a twinkle in her eye and a skip in her step that always brought us great pleasure.  She had a zest for life, a quick and intelligent wit and a true appreciation of the delicious details of family life.  She loved to teach, to take the lead, to show an example – but she never moralised or judged, or at least never to her granddaughters.

I remember one trip to Florida when I was fourteen.  Grams took me out to lunch at a fancy restaurant with three of her old work buddies.  They were all elegant women, well educated and well groomed.  The conversation veered from politics to interesting menu items to changes in the public health system to the unseasonable weather.  There was a lot of raucous laughter and hugs all round when departing.  A few weeks later, when I was back in Australia, I received a letter from Grams.  Grams told me that she was concerned that my lack of table manners, as demonstrated at that lunch, were going to prohibit me from getting along in the world.  Respectable and influential people, argued Grams, would expect a fine young woman like me to exhibit exemplary table manners.  She then proceeded to outlines my etiquette misdemeanours and provide the correct method of deportment.  At the time, the words stung somewhat, because I was always sensitive to criticism, but I knew Grams honestly had my best interests at heart and her words of advice were offered out of care and mutual respect.  I knew that for Grams to take the time and effort to scrutinise and direct me, I must truly matter to my grandmother.

And there were numerous other ways in which Grams conveyed her love and appreciation: cards at birthdays, generous and thoughtful gifts (I am still reading my own daughter many of the books that Grams sent my younger sister Rachel over the years), sharing recipes, passing on family stories.  In her last years, before dementia stole the clarity and precision of her mind, Grams sent many long, ‘newsy’ letters.  She faithfully accepted my choices, adopting my husband Damien into her heart and warm family embrace.  She used to send photos of herself; on the back she wrote: ‘I’m all for you’.

The last time I saw Grams was on her final trip to Australia in 1999.  By then, I had 2-year old and 4-month old sons, in whose company Grams delighted.  Grams was 83 years old, but she crawled around on the floor on her hands and knees playing horsies with my toddler.  She was in her element when dealing with exhausted and anxious new mothers and their grizzly, demanding babies.  Grams just loved to jiggle and burp the little boys, and fuss over me.  Was I eating enough to look after my needs?  Was I eating the right foods to make good breast milk?  (Grams was very proud of the fact that she nursed her own babies at a time when the drug companies were pushing formula as the milk of choice; more than that, Grams’ breast milk was taken and analysed to use as a model for a new formula that came to sweep the market.  She was the only nursing mother on the ward.)   I deeply regret that Grams could not have spent more time in Australia with her great-grandchildren, as I know they would have mutually benefited from each other’s company and attention.  My redhead son, in particular, has inherited Grams’ cheekiness as well as her locks.

Grams provided an important anchor point for me.  When I was feeling lost and alone as an 18 year-old travelling abroad, Grams consoled me with the words, “Always be true to yourself”.  She didn’t mean that it was okay to be self-centred or individualistic; indeed Grams showed through her deeds that she was committed to public service.  What she meant was to trust in your heart and have faith in your judgment, staying true to your principles and beliefs.

No doubt Grams made many mistakes in her long and eventful life.  Her own judgment and choices were not always sound or sensible.  But I have no doubt that the true north of her moral compass was love.  And she loved us truly.