Reconnecting & Remembering

Mum passed away at 2 am, the early hours of Wednesday, 22 April 2020.  Mother was 94 years of age and her death has taken place during the midst of the  worldwide Coronavirus crisis of 2020.  As far as we know, this was not the cause of her death but it has its place in her story.  Mother’s health has been waning for the past two years or so and the struggle of clinging to life has taken its toll on her general well-being  and dignity.  The hope is her death is a happy release.  Already the messages and kind words of condolence are beginning to circulate as the ‘traces’ of Mother’s life are surfaced, acknowledged and remembered by the lives of the people she has touched and have helped define her place in the world. 

With the restrictions in place because of the Coronavirus crisis, Mother’s funeral and burial alongside Father, Donald, is likely to be an estranged affair.  Given the lives of the many people Mother has touched, just ten will be afforded space at her funeral. Mother was an amiable and sociable person so this will be the great sadness of her death.  But at another time and at another place this will be set to rights.  Her family and friends will take their leave as Mother settles into her place among, and with, her family past.



Mother joins  Father, the grandson of James Fry who lost his life on the Clarence Road bridge in 1897.  Father died in 1977, a relatively young man, his absence keenly felt by Mother then left to see two young daughters through their teenage years.  Three older sons had already left the family home to trace their particular paths through life.  Donald had been born on 12 May 1921 to my Grandfather Leonard Alfred (b. 1893) and Grandmother, Leah Alberta (b. 1897).