Letter to Germany.

14 October 2024

Dear Angelika

I write to you with the sad news that my mother Mary passed away last month. She had been suffering several conditions and eventually succumbed in hospital. She died quite peacefully on September 25.

Mum always enjoyed receiving your letters and cards. She looked forward to hearing all your news, especially about your many cycling and walking adventures in the countryside and along the rivers of your country, news about your cooking, and about your garden and the animals and birds that appeared in it from time to time.

Mum’s funeral was held on October 11, and many family and friends attended, including grand- and great-grandchildren, and even a great-great-grandchild. The funeral was held in the St John Bosco’s church in Niddrie, close to her house in West Essendon. It was a sad but nostalgic occasion, because in the 1960s my mother and father had sent us to the parish school next to the church, and both of my parents helped out with parish functions and voluntary work in the early days. Mum did church cleaning and helped in the tuckshop; Dad mowed lawns and built a fine timber lectern for the church (he was a good carpenter in his younger days, but he did not make that his career).

On the morning of the funeral, my two teenage sons and I sat in a small café around the corner from the church and drank coffee, as we were way too early for the ceremony. My younger son, Thomas, played organ during the funeral mass, including Schubert’s beautiful 'Ave Maria'. Various children and grand-children recited the readings, the Prayers of the Faithful and some eulogies. The pallbearers were the grandsons, and the funeral procession went out to Bulla Cemetery, almost in the countryside, and there mum was buried, beneath a stand of old pines, next to my father, and also my sister, who died tragically in 1981.

Undoubtedly, my mother lived a very full, very long, and very happy life. I was fortunate enough to be looking after her until the end: I live fifteen minutes away by car, and I would cook her supper most nights and read any mail to her as her eyesight was failing.  As I mentioned, she loved hearing from you and I was fortunate enough to be able to read your news to her. These letters she always kept.

Mum was active until the end, and she would sometimes mischievously disappear when it was time for her nurse visits. A couple of nights before she died, I received a phone call from the nurse to say that mum was missing, and did I know where she was? I was in the country taking an overnight break from looking after her, and was getting ready to make a return to the city to join the search party when I received another call saying she had suddenly reappeared! She had walked to Keilor Road, a distance of 1.5 kilometres, so her final journey in life was a round trip of three kilometres on her walker, in the dark. She was indignant when told she had missed her nurse appointment, insisting on her right to go walking whenever she felt like it! These trips were frequent and we were preparing to fit a tracker to her walker.

In closing, best wishes to you for the rest of 2024 - and for the festive season which will be upon us before we know it. 

With kind regards

Paul