Aunty Grace's funeral

My much loved and beautiful Aunty Grace died in her sleep a week ago on Friday. She was an inspiration to single mothers because she had been widowed during the war.

She had a career as a chiropodist - she advised my mother on my flat feet. She was a haven from home, when my parents weren't around, somewhere else to go in the school holidays. In my twenties, she told me I could have her gold sleepers if I ever had my ears pierced, so within 24 hours I'd got her to take me to the jeweller's shop where they pierced my ears.

Aunty Grace has lots of grandchildren and even some great grandchildren too. She remarried in 1995, and that was a tale, because when she married her late husband's best man, she insisted that a woman of 80 couldn't be getting married, so they brought the wedding forward before her birthday.

They had the funeral and requiem mass for her today, and it was pleasant to meet her grandchildren and see how many of their neighbours were there too. She and her husband have neighbours who are been incredibly helpful and supportive for years. That's the big society - neighbours like theirs.

Grace was the eldest of four children. My mother mourned:

"I'm the only apple left on the tree"