Well. If you’re reading this, you, like me, got past Christmas.
For me this year it was a really wonderful family time. A really good Christmas. Sad, but good. Christmas has always been an important time in my family. First as a child and then starting our own family we have continued the tradition. I’ll be posting a short clip of our Christmas in the next couple of days.
Just before 3pm on Wednesday 15th December, on a beautiful sunny afternoon opposite the Fitzroy Gardens just to the east of Melbourne’s CBD, Marjorie Veronica (Billie) Curnow’s spirit left her stroke ridden body behind, flew out the window and entered the next life.
Born, in Ultima in North Western Victoria on the 28th March 1916, the youngest of seven children, she was the child of an Irish community. She remained proud of her Irish heritage throughout her life. Although she loved her father, his English/Scottish lineage didn’t seem to enter the equation. His death when she was only seven, must have been a major part in the formation of her self image. Regardless, being ‘Irish’ was always figured strongly in our upbringing.
In true Irish tradition, Mum knew both great happiness and great sadness during her life. The great tragedies of her life were the death of her father, her handsome young husband returning disfigured from the war, a series of miscarriages and the death of our brother, Roger, from a long illness in 1975.