Lena Ruth Rowberry - a personal tribute.

You would have been 90 today, mum.   This July you will have been gone from the physical plane all of four years.  And there hasn’t been a second of any day since 10^th July 2010 that I haven’t felt somehow connected to you but at the same time very lost.   Little things, big things happen and I have to resist the urge to turn around and phone you about it.

You were there at Andrew’s wedding, shivering in that big Bedouin tent (!).  When we started packing things up after we’d finalised the selling of our house in Kingfisher avenue, I felt you watching over your things and tut-tutting when we sold something that you may have wanted me to keep.  I felt terribly guilty about selling off many things that you owned and that I’d put into storage but we just couldn’t take all of those things, we barely had space for our own keepsakes, furniture, clothes and mementos.  One day, I came across an old battered brown suitcase and not thinking, opened it.  The things that we’d taken to the hospital were in that case, mum. Your nighties, your dressing gown, slippers, shawl, personal things … all with your scent on them still.  I took the case to my room and wouldn’t let anyone touch it for a long time.  It was the hardest thing I ever had to do when it came time to throw those things away.  I didn’t want to, mum.  I wanted to take your nightie and all the clothes that you had and hold on to them for as long as I could.  

And now we are living in the UK, something you always wanted to do, from the minute we left England in December 1968 and still I can feel you here with me, it hasn’t gone faint at all. You were there at my Auntie Jean’s 80^th birthday, you left a little reminder (the Whale Watcher’s wine, remember?). You smile at the things the kiddies do, wag your finger at them when they're naughty and huff and puff at the rubbish on TV that Hayzel and Kevin want to watch, just like you would have done back in your lovely little lounge in Hermanus!  And when Daniel was born, Andrew said how sad he was that his Granny couldn't have been there but I said that you were.    Hayzel said many times how much seeing Auntie Jean and Auntie Barbara brought back the memory of her Granny because you are all a part of each other, hey?  You live on through us somehow, I realise that now.

From Top L to R:  Mum, Jean, Barbara, my Granny Lena, Auntie Nell, Granddad Rowberry, Uncle Arthur

Happy birthday, mum.