Elaine

While I was in Northern Alberta, I bid farewell to my mother.   All of us kids and grandkids in the area, along with Dad and the rest of us who'd come along for Samantha's wedding, got together on the rambling deck of their house and shared our memories and photographs.  There is one of Ian I'm dying to share .. preferably on a 6 ft poster frame when it would be most embarrassing.


I spent weeks avoiding the actual writing of her eulogy ... I'd sit down to do it .. then get drawn aside by something .. anything, reallly .. that caught my attention.  Writing a eulogy is fraught with scores of memory bogholes - both the good times and bad scenes are there to drawn you in as you wander the meandering path from childhood to where you are today.

It was easier in that I've had a year to sort through my emotions and come to terms with threads that were left to dangle, things unsaid, things undone .. as well as things that were said or done.   It was a tad harder in that I didn't want to gloss over all the hard parts either, because they do paint the full picture of the individual. 

I thought that going to my brothers and Dad, and her sister with whom she shared a special connection, would  help the process, and it did.  Thank you all for your contributions and the time you spent with me on the phone. 
The writing came easy after that as I went through the individual recollections and popped in bits that their thoughts brought back for me.  The process was cathartic for me .. and I hope some of that came across as we sat on Dad's deck and remembered her.

Rest in peace, Mom.