Peg's funeral

My nearly 90-year-old Aunty Peggy died on 16 September, probably while she was watching the Pope's arrival here - they found her with the television on.

Today was her funeral, well attended. Her surviving four children, along with her eight grandchildren arrived from three continents to celebrate her life at the parish church that she and Uncle Jack had attended since around 1968 when they moved to that small town. My #5 cousin said that Peg had been the heart of the family, that many had seen her as a mother, and indeed she was. When I was very small, I had to stay with her although she already had four children, for three weeks because my father was seriously ill in hospital. Aunty Peggy treated me like one of her own, even though I was her husband's niece, not hers. Years later she reminded me how's she'd washed my hair, and been startled by my screaming - I was always scared that the soap would go in my eyes and sting. She brought up five children, carried on mothering them till she was in her eighties.

My octogenarian mother came to the funeral, saw her sister-in-law buried with Jack. Of that generation, my mother and her sister remain, both frail, saddened and becoming lonelier. Aunty Peggy was active, not frail, but planning another trip to follow her three holidays last year, including a cruise with my cousin round Norway, getting trapped by the Icelandic volcanic eruption and choosing to trek for two days overland home. She had to get home; she had a wedding to go to.

She was inspiring! I hope when I'm ninety I can do as much.

Remember, remember the third of September

Remember, remember the third of September
Umbrella, swastika and sickle
For that bit of daring
Old Hitler is swearing
He's got himself into a pickle.

This is what my mother wrote during the second world war. The third of September 1939 is the day that war was declared.

• The umbrella represents Chamberlain,who always had smartly rolled up umbrella
  
• The swastika represents the Nazis, and
• The sickle represents Russia.

Both my mother's big brothers, Jack and Bill, had to join the services and go to war, which saddened and worried their mother. In the first world war, her little brother, my mother's Uncle Willie on his last leave was admiring baby Jack in his pram. My grandmother, less patriotic perhaps than her brother, who'd come from Canada to join up, asked:

"If you were killed, would you think it were worth it?"

Uncle Willie looked at the baby and replied:

"If it means this little lad won't have to go to war, it'll be worth it."

Uncle Willie was killed in WW1, and Uncle Jack had to join up in WW2 - so Uncle Willie's sacrifice wasn't worth it.

Jack's jokes

My auntie has been clearing out some of my uncle's papers. He died last year. I blogged it then.

Auntie has sent me some of his jokes. On the paper he's written:

The official ebonics medical terms dictionary

Benign: what you be after you be eight
Bacteria: back door to cafeteria
Barium: what doctors do when patients die (shouldn't that be what grave diggers do?)
Casarean section: a neighbourhood in Rome
Cauterize: made eye contact with her
Colic: a sheep dog (groan)
Coma: a punctuation mark (some of students do think this)
D&C: where Washington is
Dilate: to live long (what my uncle did)
Enema: not a friend
Fester: quicker than someone else
Fibula: a small like
GI series: world series of military baseball (from this line and other spelling I guess Uncle Jack got this from the states)
Hangnail: what you hang your coat on
Impotent: distinguished, well known
Labour pain: getting hurt at work
Medical staff: a doctor's cane
Morbid: a higher offer than I bid
Nitrates: cheaper than day rates
Node: I knew it
Outpatient: a person who has fainted
Pap smear: a fatherhood test
Pelvis: second cousin to elvis
Post operative: a letter carrier
Recovery room: place to do upholstery
Rectum: damn near killed him
Secretion: hiding something
Seizure: Roman emperor
Tablet: a small table (which is logical)
Terminal illness: getting sick at the airport (Uncle J did get sick once, flying to Italy, I think he had a heart attack)
Tumor: more than one
Urine: opposite of mine
Varicose: near by/ close by

I think his brother, Bill, would have laughed at these too.

Thirty years ago today

Thirty years ago today, I saw my Aunty and Uncle - the uncle who died earlier this year. It's their wedding anniversary today and this is the first one she'll have without him. I tried to find a photo of them together that day, but can't, so here is one of my parents that day instead.

Funeral

I went to Jack's funeral on Monday. The memorial service at the church was philosophical. When the priest first arrived at the parish, Jack greeted him by telling him that he had been at school with his son-in-law, and that's how the priest started his memories of Jack.

His middle daughter read Jack's favourite poem, High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, and I've got a reasonable recording of it to put on the family site when I get the time.

Afterwards there was a meal at the Cottage.

Uncle J died Friday

Odd! There I am thinking about Uncle Bill when his big brother, Jack, dies. Uncle Jack was 90, nearly 91.

I'll add a page for him to the family site and include some sound recordings from the memorial service.