24 December 2019

Summer in our garden

 The "north paddock" is a little more overgrown than I like, the butterfly bush needs a massive prune, and some of the plants are suffering from the heat, but it's been a while since I posted any photos, so here goes . . .










Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)

30 November 2019

The start of people


A raw world
 - untamed, full of threats
but full of potential.
A new species
 - untamed, full of threats
but full of potential,
Competing
 - potential and threat
vying for dominion,
vying still,
albeit
with wisdom gained
at hard cost
to people and place
alike.
 


Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)

21 October 2019

A partial cross post: change - including a bit on sailing :)

This was originally published at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2010/07/transformation-and-change.html.

In seeking to accomplish this, I am very much aware that change is inevitable - it is one of the best lessons I learned from being Buddhist. It probably helps that I've seen so much change in my life. As a few of the smaller examples:
  • As a kid, from before I was old enough to go to school and for my first years of school, we lived in a place called Syndal (it is now part of Glen Waverley). In those days, it was on the outskirts of Melbourne, and we used to walk to a State forest at the bottom of the hill, and find all sorts of fascinating things like discarded snake skins. Now, it is not too far from the geographic centre of the population distribution of Melbourne. I went back there when I came back to Melbourne, many years later, and could not even recognise where our house used to be - all the houses had been developed, rebuilt, and retaining walls put in. The magnificent forest was, sadly, long gone ... I did buy a set of tuning forks, though, at a music shop, which I used for many years while meditating on sound and vibration.
  • After Syndal, we moved to Parkdale (I still support the Parkdale Seagulls [I signed the petition not to change the name of the women's team from the Seagulls to the vultures when the men's Parkdale Seagulls and Mentone Vultures combined to form the Parkdale Vultures, so I'm stickin' to that :) ] in the VWFL), where I had my first "first day" at high school [4]. I also went back there when I returned, as an adult, and was struck by the fact that the streets were half the size I recalled. (I was also struck by the fact that someone who had subsequently owned the house we had lived in had concreted over the front lawn and painted it green! Uuughh! Vandal - ENVIRONMENTAL vandal!)
  • After we moved back to Queensland (I was actually born in Brisbane, but was adopted at three weeks and then flown to Melbourne shortly after, in the back of a DC3; the next few years were, I found out later, a lonely time for my [adoptive] Mum), we wound up involved with the now defunct Mackay Sailing Club because of my interest in sailing (I've mentioned sailing and my love of the sea in passing elsewhere: it kept me going through some personally very challenging times as a teenager, as I came to terms with myself). One of the highlights of the year for me, both sailing and personally, was out two week stint during the August school holidays at Kurrimine Beach [5]. In the few years I went there, I witnessed the coral reef just off the beach being desecrated by tourists taking bits of coral (this was long before anyone had even started talking about Marine Parks), and I also witnessed the change of character of the regatta as it became better known, and we had more skilled but more aggressive sailors come up from down south for a warm winter's holiday. In fact, I have witnessed the changes in a few groups that happens when the groups becomes larger: this was no exception. I haven't been back there for ages, but was still sad to hear of the devastation caused to the area by Cyclone Larry (I am very pleased, though [proud, even], one of my nephews helped with the clean-up effort).
  • I have seen lots of changes happen since my return to Melbourne, not all for the better, but dome definite improvements to the physical environment and, above all else, to the psyche of the place and the people. Discrimination against LGBTIQ people is now largely prohibited (see here for a history of the changes, and here for the current legal situation in Victoria), and there are active changes to improve inclusion of a wide range of people - for instance, see here and here.
So, change is inevitable. What we can do, is seek to make the change constructive, rather than destructive. What we can also do is avoid the mistake of "throwing the baby out with the bath water", and see the elements of good that may exist in something that is, overall bad - for example, the teamwork that can be developed within military organisations, and seek to find a way to use that in a constructive way.

Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)

02 September 2019

A third yarn (more a note, really) about sailing

In my last "yarn", I mentioned moving to Mackay, and my concern about whether or not they had a sailing club. They did, and I had a stack of experiences - good and bad (and funny, and a mixed bag of insights into people) - there, but the one matter I want to write about now is learning.

I started off crewing for an experienced skipper, and eventually got to the stage where my parents decided to buy me a boat so I could be a skipper myself. One turned up which thought was a great bargain, but they decided to spend a few hundred dollars more and get something that was competitive and less likely to sink :)

Initially, I wasn't very good, until another skipper (from another class) took pity on me and crewed for me for a few weeks, getting me to do things like focus on the telltales on the sails instead of looking round and being distracted. His help worked, and I started improving - and passing on what I was learning and had learned to others, which is another series of posts.

But the value of learning was clear, and it backed up the value what I had started doing as soon as we bought the boat, which was pester - I mean, "respectfully ask" - other skippers for advice: "Mr Turner," I would pester (it was a different era, hence the "mister", but in some ways not so different, hence the "pester") "how do you choose what rake to put on your mast?"

I had a small notebook that I put all these different approaches into - and they were all different. I was going to just try them all out for myself, but was told I should ask them to clarify why they preferred to use their technique when someone else used another.

That challenging went over like a lead zeppelin, and when I heard a comment about everything being taken down as evidence and used against you, I decided to go back to my original approach of gather and then try for myself - which helped emphasise that everyone is unique, and what suits one person will - no matter how good it is - not necessarily suit another, despite NOTHING being wrong with that other person.

Sadly, many people in life (and especially the older - my lot - of engineers) are simplistic or judgemental in their thinking, and assume that, because something worked so well for them it MUST work for others, and accuse others of being defective when that is not the case (often because they WRONGLY feel that they must be defective if something works for them, but not others).

I've also noticed some - not all, by any stretch - younger people are less interested in learning from those who are more experienced, and more interested in pushing their own perceptions of ability and competence. I don't consider that to be an outcome of changed parenting so much as it is an outcome of changed economic and work circumstances. Sadly, we have gone down the US style of living, and are pushing people to be aggressive and self promoting, characteristics I consider utterly detestable, and have been making work so insecure that employees have to be aggressive just to get, let alone keep, a job.

The young people of today reflect the world my generation (pack of idiots we are) made.

Final note: I lost touch with the people in that sailing club a long time ago - partly because of some idiotically insensitive letters I wrote, partly because the club burned down and is no longer there, and partly because of the many changes I have been through. C'est la vie: things change, and, as my partner says, people (and places, and organisations) are in our life for a day, a season or a life. Mackay Sailing Club was in my life for a decade or so (a season of a life), and shaped the whole of it.

Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)

15 July 2019

A second yarn about sailing'n'stuff


I learned to sail when I was around 12. The local sailing club put an ad in newsletter of the primary school I went to, and, having recently found Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” series, I was open to the idea of learning to sail.
A librarian had directed me to that series when I had read all the books on camping in the school library, saying it had sailing and camping – which was true, and I don’t think my parents were going to be too upset that I would stop borrowing a sheet to make a makeshift camp in the backyard. (Later, I would borrow a sheet and two broom to erect make believe sail, mast, and boom or yardarm . . . so maybe it wasn’t quite as good as they hoped :) .)
The conditions included being able to swim, and having been “encouraged” by Mum and Dad to go to the local lifesaving club as well as going through the swimming lessons my school compelled everyone to go through, that wasn’t a problem. I actually hated swimming at the beach though, and it wasn’t until I got to swim around capsized boats in around 50 feet of water (sailing has come along the metrication path a bit more slowly than the rest of Australia) that I really started to relax and enjoy being in the water.
Did I mention my part Irish heritage? Primary school me thought Dad used to get the best jokes from the Irish club – and Dad could appreciate the humour in not being comfortable swimming until I was in water way over my head.
On the Irish connection, a few years later I taught an Irishman to sail, and we used to consider it a fair deal: when we came back into the beach, he knew more about sailing, and I had more of an Irish lilt to my Aussie intonation.
Then again, maybe my accent wasn’t as strong as I assumed. A couple of decades later on my way to commission a treatment plant in China, while the plane was sitting on a tarmac in another city it had been diverted to, waiting for the snow to stop in the city I was heading to or for another plane to leave there so we could slot in, another passenger leaned over, and asked if he could practice his English. I said no problem, and closed the book I had been reading – which was “Lion of Ireland”, about Brian Boru. The other passenger started by saying “I am guessing you are from Ireland”; when I was telling that story to my friends back in Oz, at this point I would say “so much for the Aussie accent”, and was floored when they told me I had more an “international” accent.
Damn I must have watched too much American tellie when I was a kid and had run out of books to read.
Going back to when I was a kid, and was learning to sail, I thought the programme they had set up was quite good, and it guided the series of lessons I subsequently used to teach others how to sail. The lessons included some obvious safety notes, such as staying with the boat, air spaces under capsized boats, jury rigging (at my second sailing club, we towed kids who were had learned to sail 50 m or so off the beach with the elements of their rig, and set a challenge to create a jury rig to get back in to the beach), how to cope with waves breaking on a beach, keeping warm (which used to be a problem for me in that pre-yoga breathing technique part of my life  I was so scrawny that one joke was my arms had the muscles of a chicken leg :) ), etc.
Actually, jumping ahead a bit, what is hot or cold is always a combination of personal preference and what you're used to. Nowadays, I don't like temperatures much over 18, but when I was a kid in Qld (in the 70s, when “air con” [air conditioning] was rare - my adoptive parents didn't like or have air con throughout their lives) I would put a jumper on if it got below 25°C - and I have a friend who doesn't like anything under 28°C :) . However, after a day on a construction site when the unofficial temperature was in the 50s, I decided to move from Queensland back to cooler Melbourne – which it is, most of the time, but the highest official temperature I experienced in Queensland – albeit pre-climate change - was 46°C, whereas here in Melbourne, 2,000 km closer to the pole, the highest official temperature I've experienced was ~47°C.
Being used to temperatures makes a difference, but most people are so out of touch with the effects of their emotions (particularly, some mild version of seasonal affective disorder) and what is happening to their bodies that they rug themselves up so much in winter that their skin temperature is probably higher than in summer, and they think the weather is colder than it is.
I also, as alluded to, found some yogic breathing exercises that were quite effective for me – but not others, especially the sceptically inclined - at staying warmer. (Their effect tended to be accumulative, so I gave them up as it was too difficult to keep fitting in to society.)
So . . . Mackay.
When I first heard we were moving there, my greatest concern was: did they have a sailing club?
Boy, did they ever! However, I’ll keep most of that for another yarn.
 


Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)

13 June 2019

Cross posting: my adoptive parents' eulogies

I originally posted these at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2015/09/post-no-765-personal-in-remembrance.html. However, as I've started doing a few yarns, it is appropriate to cross post them here, in my opinion.

First, the post included the following:
Although it is not really relevant to this blog, I would like to honour my father by posting his eulogy here. I then checked, and found I didn't do that for Mum when I wrote about her funeral, so I will add hers as well. (I've taken out or modified some names for privacy reasons - I referred to living people by name, and do not have their permission to do so here - and would not ask it: it is more important they be allowed to grieve) I've added a few links.

I'm never happy with something like this - it is so hard to reduce decades of living down to a few minutes of talking, but I'm pleased that others asked for copies of the eulogies: it must have meant something to them. In the case of Dad's eulogy, people were sharing stories about his life as well afterwards, so I feel like it worked.

Courtesy of being adopted I have one more parent left: my birth Mum (my birth father died before I found them).

If this is of no interest to you, please feel free to move on by :)

I also wish to repeat a comment I made here, abut those whose experience of family is not as healthy as mine has been.

"And yes, all this is being written by the woman who keeps giving warnings about families, how they aren’t all good, and they don’t have the right to control people, etc.

Why?

Well, I know people who have suffered through some appalling families, but the situation is also a little akin to someone I’ve said about relationships and domestic violence. I am of the view that partners in a relationship should have enough financial and other reserves to be able to leave if they need to (or want to). That should be an example set, in particular, by those in good relationships – who can agree to do so without rancour or stress. That leads to people who are in bad relationships being able to hold them up as an example, and perhaps say “well, relationship X is solid, and they’ve done this, so I think we should as well, to also set an example”. That would work in possibly only a low percentage of abusive relationships, but that’s better than nothing, and maybe it will lead to people automatically making sure they have enough to leave before they go into a relationship.

Similarly, it is most impactful if people who have good family situations say “hey, I know I’m on a good thing here, but I appreciate it, and I know that not everyone is as fortunate, so we shouldn’t put pressure on those people by being insensitive, or presumptuous, or put them in a situation of having to say ‘hey, well, my situation isn’t/wasn’t so good, you know’ ”."

Copy of my (adoptive) father's eulogy
The single word most commonly used to describe Dad by those who knew him was "gentleman". I’ve talked to a few people who knew Dad in recent times, and all of them found him to be a considerate, caring, well-mannered and dignified gentleman.
I don’t know if he had those characteristics all his life. Growing up in West Rockhampton was tough – as Dad’s sister, _ can probably confirm. It was the time of the Great Depression, and Dad’s father, also called I_, earned what he could as a labourer. Later, that also included working for the yanks when they were building their air bases in Rocky during the Second World War.
And that was a time when Dad discovered his love of flying, and of photography.
He has some truly amazing photos of those times – including various planes, and family members and events. There are also photos of what are possibly historic events, such as major floods.
As I said, it was not easy living there then.
Going back to the planes for a moment, Dad had a few interesting stories. One was about a young friend of his who horrified his mother by taking a machine gun from a plane which had crashed – and which couldn’t be fired because of the bent barrel and removal of the firing pin – and taking it home.
Dad ended the war training to be a navigator – he was two weeks off being assigned to active duty when the war ended. He talked a few times about friends he made in those days.
Dad also had a very level headed perspective on some of the martinets he came across at that time, comments along the lines that a few tried to be disciplinarians, but it didn’t do too much. Dad believed in discipline, but starting with self discipline, which showed with his successes in sport. He played soccer when he was younger, and came up with what sounds like the off-side trap, and was proud of having won an amateur boxing tournament.
Somewhere around this time, Dad started working in the railways, and spent, he told me, 7 years there. During that time, he came across a number of characters – such as the worker who would put his alarm clock inside a kerosene tin to make sure he had no choice but the get up when it went off.
Dad appreciated a good story, and had a great sense of humour. I can still remember the corny jokes he would bring back from the Irish Club, and we generally would swap a joke or two whenever we talked.
Another characteristic Dad had was intelligence, and this, I think, was to everyone’s benefit when he started in the old Commercial Bank of Australia – the CBA, as it was then known, before the Commonwealth pinched the acronym. Dad’s work for the bank w while he was studying as despite the efforts of cousin _, who played “From a Jack to A King” fairly loudly, but Dad got even by forcing everyone to listen to the Goons.
Dad’s initial work in the bank was in Alpha, and he has told me a few stories from that time. I’ll relay just one, which is how, one cold winter morning, he and a colleague added a dash of rum to their morning cuppa. Others gradually joined in, and apparently calling in for a morning cuppa at the bank became quite popular, for some reason.
Alpha, of course, is also where Dad met Mum, and this is where I can start talking about how he was a loving and caring man.
As I said at Mum’s funeral, when people meet, sometimes it is said sparks fly; in the case of H_ and I_ it was an ambulance siren turned on when the driver spotted them kissing behind a tree.
They were married in Rockhampton on the 28th of September, 1953, and that was the start of a 54 year relationship. You would be hard pressed to find a better example of a more loving, genuine and long lasting commitment.
In 1958 they moved to Melbourne, knowing no-one, and with a three week old baby – me. They stuck it out, and their life’s circumstances improved. Because of Dad’s work in the bank, they had a few more moves to make in the life they shared together: to Mackay in 197_, to Townsville in 198_, with retirement to Brisbane in 198_.
They had their ups and downs, but they stayed together and cared for each other. When Dad retired, he was at a bit of a loose end, and Mum stepped in and got him busy doing odd jobs about the house. Her passing was a blow to – well, all of us, but obviously it was a particular blow to Dad. I’ve been a bit surprised he has lasted as long as he has since Mum’s passing, but I’m glad that they are now – in my opinion – together.
I’m also glad his suffering has passed. The deterioration he went through in his last few years wasn’t easy to watch, and it certainly wasn’t easy for Dad, but he bore it with as much dignity and gentlemanly style as he could.
He also had an enormous amount of help in these times, as did Mum, from my sister, _, and her husband. Heartfelt thanks are owed to both of you. It hasn’t been easy, particularly in these last few months.
Dad’s caring for people came through in his banking career. Dad liked being able to help people and businesses, and hated what happened to banking in the 90s. I think he must have been quite good at that, because the CBA in Mackay seemed to fund a long line of Maltese family weddings – to which we were invited.
There were harder times in banking as well, and Dad had a few stories about the times people would break down in his office over having approved loans that went bad. His attitude was to prefer continuing to help people – as he said, it may take only a small amount extra, on top of what already been invested.
I’d like go back to one of the moves: to Mackay in 1972. At that time, I became active in sailing, and Dad also wound up getting involved – as financier, and supporter. He didn’t get into sailing much himself, but stepped in one weekend that I was preparing for a regatta. My crew was available on the Saturday, but not the Sunday. Dad watched us for a while on the Saturday, from up on top of the breakwater, built high enough above the water to cope with a cyclone, and then crewed for me on the Sunday, sitting about a foot and a half above the water. That led to a conversation which went something like this:
Dad: “how big are those waves today?”
Me: “About 8 to 10 feet”
Dad: “And how big were they yesterday?”
Me: “About 10 to 12 feet”
Dad, in a dry voice: “They look bigger, from down here.”
Dad stepping in to help like that was typical of his caring and devotion to family. I’ve mentioned _ and _: their kids and grandkids were also a big part of his life.
He was, of course, a big part of our lives – and the other people he touched.
Dad, may you rest in peace and love; we’ll grieve now, strongly, but may the longer part of that be our remembrance of your love, dignity, and humour. Rest well, good and gentle sir.

Copy of my (adoptive) mother's eulogy
The basic details of my mother’s life are that she was born on the _, 1928, had two children, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and passed away on the _, 2007.
She and her life were, of course, so much more than those bare numbers.
H_ was born in Clermont to a Scottish father, _, and English mother, _, who was originally an O_. She had three siblings: the older _ and _, and the younger _. Her early life was on a property near Alpha, and lacked the mod-cons of modern life. Mum once told me she was glad she no longer had to heat water in a copper, and she had a few stories of the kids going to school on the back of a horse, and of an occasion when they were running low on meat when the men were all away and she was given the task of slaughtering a sheep for food.
She also had a corny joke about a horse with a sulky behind that stuck in my mind for many years. H_ had a few corny jokes.
I think H_’s country skills stayed with her. One day in the 60s, when we were living in an outer suburb of Melbourne, I found my younger sister playing with a snake one winter’s day, and Mum made short shrift of the snake with a shovel. 
H_ met I_ in 1952, when she was working in a hospital, and he was working in the bank. When people meet, sometimes it is said sparks fly; in the case of H_ and I_ it was an ambulance siren turned on when the driver spotted them kissing behind a tree.
They were married in Rockhampton on the 28th of September, 1953, and that was the start of a 54 year relationship. You would be hard pressed to find a better example of a more loving, genuine and long lasting commitment.
That love and commitment would be tested at times – as it was in 1958 when they moved to Melbourne, knowing no-one, and with a three week old baby – me. Mum travelled down to Melbourne on a DC3, and told me I was brought out from a cot in the back of the plane whenever I needed my next feed.
In those early days in Melbourne, I_ would get home from work and ask how H_’s day had been, and she would burst into tears.
They stuck it out, and their life’s circumstances improved. Because of Dad’s work in the bank, they had a few more moves to make in the life they shared together: to Mackay in 1971, to Townsville in 1982, with retirement to Brisbane in 1985. By the time they got to Townsville, they had been through a few moves, but it was still tough. It was there H_ once asked I_ if he ever got lonely, and it was there that she began her work as a volunteer with Lifeline.
I mention the challenges of these moves because H_ had a courage that some may not have fully appreciated. Her courage was of the type that shines when coping with the worst trials and tribulations of everyday life: making major moves before Dad retired, and, more recently, coping with her illness.
In addition to her courage, Mum had a tremendous patience in all sorts of circumstances – patience that helped her cope with the many problems which everybody strikes in over 50 years of married life. She had a tremendous motherly feeling towards her family, and would come up with all sorts of schemes to help her loved ones. When sitting around with Dad, she would _ounce these schemes by saying “I’ve been thinking”, and he would grab his chair in pretended terror at the next revelation.
I’d like go back to one of the moves: to Mackay in 1972. At that time, I became active in sailing, and Mum became involved in the sailing club as one of the auxiliary members. She took on tasks such as working in the canteen and helping organise functions. Every August we would go to Kurrimine Beach for a couple of weeks for a regatta, and she and the other ladies of the club would always have a good time - particularly with the card games.
That good time may have been helped just a little by the sherry.
One year the organisers of the regatta decided to hold a Mothers Race. All the various mothers were rounded up and put in a boat with one of their offspring, and given the task of being skipper. H_ won that race - and she was the only mother who actually steered the boat throughout the race. Those skills obviously stayed with her. In recent years when taken shopping in a wheelchair by daughter _ and granddaughter _, she would “direct traffic” with one finger from her wheelchair – and it was up to _ and _ to follow the signals. If things were going too slowly, Mum would take her feet off the foot-stops and walk the chair along herself. It was no wonder those other mothers didn’t have a chance all those years ago at Kurrimine.
H_’s creative side also developed further at that time, and included involvement in craft activities such as Hobbytex and leatherwork. Quite a few members of the sailing club had T shirts with the club emblem on that Mum and the other ladies in the club auxiliary made, and many also had leather stubby holders which she carved their name into - Dad still has his.
One of the other areas she showed her creativity was music. It was while in Mackay that Dad bought an organ for H_ and _ to learn to play. That organ stayed with the family for many years, and through quite a few moves, until recently, when it was donated to a young woman in this church who apparently couldn’t afford to buy an organ. That donation pleased H_ enormously, and fitted her generous nature.
Another area that Mum showed her creativity in – and her caring - was in her cooking. There is a dish she helped prepare at Kurrimine Beach, a chicken dish cooked in a camp oven, that I still remember to this day, more than 30 years later. Her roasts were absolutely wonderful, and her corned beef fritters were even better – Mum’s grandson _ in particular loved his Gran’s corned beef fritters.
H_ was always absolutely wonderful with kids. She adored her grandchildren, _ and _, and they adored their Gran back. A major part of Mum’s life in the last couple of decades has been _ and her family, and the support they – and Dad - have given her in recent years, and in particular in the last six months, has been absolutely outstanding – it has been without compare.
H_’s normally happy nature was severely tested by medical setbacks over the recent years, but she faced those with courage and determination – which, unfortunately, was not enough. We, her family, have never been more proud of her than in the way she faced her debilitating illness, and the strength with which she faced it’s inevitable end.
There were moments of humour, though. I’ve mentioned that _ and _ would take Mum shopping. Later, as her illness progressed and she was no longer able to join in these trips, they would include her by phoning about purchases. Recently, they rang her to discuss a toy for great-grandson _. After having the toy and why it was such a bargain described in great detail, and asking whether she thought that would be good for him, Mum asked what other toys the store had.
_’s husband, _, will give the second part of this eulogy.
Mum’s life in the last few decades also notably included her work at Lifeline. She worked 25 years as a volunteer, and was recognised for that with a special award a few years ago.
In addition, H_ was strongly involved in the church’s activities, with the craft group, card group and bus trips to places such as the Mary Valley Rattler. Mum has obviously made a powerful impression through these groups, as some of the earliest sympathy cards came to Dad from some of the other church ladies.
She had the ability to make a great impression on many people. One of my friends in Melbourne, also called H_, treasures the bed throw that Mum crocheted for her young son. My partner, who unfortunately can’t be here today, was also deeply touched by Mum’s welcome into the family. They shared an interest in leatherwork, and when we were both up here a few months ago and came home with a few newly bought leather tools, Mum was straight out of bed to show how the tools should be used.
That helpfulness, and that touching of others’ hearts. was characteristic of H_, and her caring, loving nature. She had such a lovely, easy going nature that people instinctively liked her and were happy to claim her as a friend. At a time of sadness like this, it is an uplifting feeling to see the love and respect of so many family and friends, and we thank you for this.
My mother’s love shaped and touched the hearts of many us, much as wind can shape stone. As with the wind, we can’t see H_ now, but we can see the effects she has had on us, and that her legacy will continue to have on us. It shows and will always show in the way we live our lives. We can honour her by living up to her example of courage, commitment, humour and love.

Copyright © Kayleen White, 2019 (where this date is different to the year of publication, it is because I did the post some time ago and then used the scheduling feature to delay publication) I take these photographs and undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary or artistic merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit and due financial recompense, of course :)