Wednesday 7 December 2011

Remembering my family

 On Friday James and I headed down to Brisbane for a few days.

Both my Sister and I were Christened in Queensland when we were young so I decided I wanted to re-visit the Church. Catherine was Christened in 1983 and mine was in 1991, out of the five adults that attended these Christenings; Nana, Poppy, my Mum, my Aunt Dee and Uncle Tony, only Tony is still here with us today. Unfortunately, Tony couldn't remember what the Church was called but my cousin Sean remembered it was in Cleveland, near where Nana and Poppy lived. After a quick look at Churches in the area on Google Street View I recognised St Paul's from my Christening photos.

It was lovely to see the Church again and there was another special surprise there too. My Mum was quite a spiritual person and really loved trees. As she was ill for quite a while she had some time to quietly make plans for her funeral. Unbeknown to my family she had given a photo of herself to my Godmother Jenny and asked Jenny to keep hold of it for when the right time came. The photo was taken on the day of my Christening and it's of my Mum in front of a really unusual tree, with lots of shoots going into the ground. In the original picture my cousin Michael is climbing the tree and my Mum is reaching up to him, but Jenny airbrushed Michael out so that it's just of Mum. It's a really symbolic photo of my Mum for me, in fact just before I left for Australia my friends Kat and Pascale gave me a locket necklace with that photo on one side and my Godson Lucas on the other (Kat also has a copy of this photo of my Mum in Lucas' room so that he'll know her, I got a surprise when I saw it there but think it's really sweet). Anyway, back to the story... I had always thought this tree was in Wellington Point but it turns out it is right in front of the Church, I recognised it straight away. I hadn't expected to see it and it made me feel both really happy and really sad at the same time.

Later we took a drive down to the Great Southern Gardens of Remembrance which is where Nana and Poppy's graves are. My Dad had taken Nana here several times to see Poppy's before she passed away. It's a really beautiful area and the words on the plaques really moved me. It was a real 'me' today so the next day was all about James - the cricket...

Here are some photos from last Friday...

St Paul's Church, Cleveland

My Mum's tree!








xoxo

3 comments:

  1. Favourite blog so far  your mamma is one totally awesome lady! Love her stories (and yours) her a.mazing hair (and yours) and ofcourse the time she told me to smoke a cigarette (okay you don't tell me ever to do that one) . Love my M&M forever and always x

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  2. Ah thanks Katty! She loved you too! But telling you to have a cigarette was for medicinal/calming purposes... you know how I feel about the matter! Haha. Love you xxx

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  3. Hi sweetie, I was on your wall on FB thinking I'd put a thank you there for you to pass onto Catherine for the Xmas card, she mentioned you were in Aus with your bf, and I discovered your blog through your FB wall.
    Anyways, I'm going to show mam this post about Merilyn's tree, it's so v touching and it's amazing to think of you standing there beneath the same one in the photo.
    We send love to Catherine you and your dad this Christmas, have a great trip
    Kat x

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