You may familiar with the policy of some workplaces of
insisting that you change your password every so often. I can see the sense in it. It is all too easy for some people spending
far too much of their time hacking into a computer and adding things or taking
away things that they shouldn’t. It
makes sense to change your password.
A while ago a friend shared with me that she used Bible
verses as her password. It was a great
way of reminding yourself of God’s word.
At the beginning of last week my computer insisted that I
changed my password. It had been Eph2:10
- “We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which
God prepared in advance for us to do.” The next five minutes or so were spent
trying to change my password to other great and memorable verses – Matt11:28,
John3:16, Isaiah 61:1, Jer31:31 – every attempt was met with the computer
telling me that I had already used that password. I was getting stressed out. The computer seemed to be frowning at me in
disgust that I apparently didn’t know any other verses of the Bible.
Finally I settled on EileenFox! The computer sighed happily and let me
through the cyber door. Every morning as
I type in EileenFox! Into the computer, I admit to smiling. I bring to mind the smile on her face and I
hear her voice in my head. The voice
says, “Ooo, I do love you, Melanie.” It
will only be a voice that I hear in my head now – unless you start saying it to
me. My world is a quieter place now.
Just as using Bible verses was supposed to remind me of
God’s word, EileenFox! reminds me of many things.
I am known to grumble in certain places that visits from
my family are too few. Mum was quite a
frequent visitor to Inverness. Sometimes
she came up on the train with my sister, Carla.
The most recent time she came up was by flying to Inverness airport with
my brother Richard. One summer many
years ago she came up a day or two after I was taken into the hospital in
Inverness with a deep vein thrombosis.
She never missed a day visiting me.
She went from bed to bed talking to every patient in the ward and
chatting to all the nurses and doctors as well.
She and my husband Joe bonded during that week. I think that somewhere in the back of her
mind she was almost convinced she gave birth to him and I was the in-law.
She made friends easily.
She talked to people about her family, about the blind club, about
church and her faith in God. She talked to people she met for the first time as
if she had known them for years.
Mum was loved by two very different and remarkable
men. Charles Wilkinson adored my mum and
taught her everything she knows when it came to cooking. She said of him that there was never a night
when she didn’t fall asleep with his arms around her. David Fox also adored my mum. He benefitted from everything she had learned
about cooking but preferred less spicy food.
There was possibly never a night when she didn’t fall asleep to the
sound and rhythm of his snoring. In
losing them, she lost more than a little of her joy and happiness.
She loved children.
She was a children magnet – they were drawn to her. When we lived in Crick our house was always
full of children – not just the six of us but other children in the
street. Summer evenings were spent
playing long games of rounders in the playing field at the back of the
house. Bad light often stopped
play. Everyone knew our mum. As each new generation of children has been born,
she loved them all. If she nagged the
new generation of mothers it was because she had been there, learned lessons
from experience and wanted to save them from making the same kind of mistakes.
At church she was a part of the crèche team for many years. It was hard for her when she had to step down
because of her ill health. She still
kept her hand in and had a long list of requests for jumpers and cardigans.
Having worn glasses all my life, I know what it is to
live life in the fuzzy lane. For the
last six months or so I have been wearing hearing aids so also have an inkling
about life in the quiet lane too.
Loosing your sight and your hearing brings its challenges. I really cottoned on to how bad my mum’s
vision was one afternoon in Inverness.
We had driven down to Loch Ness.
There is a garden centre beside the loch. There are gardens laid out on various
terraces with benches looking out and down over Loch Ness. It’s the perfect spot for Nessie
hunting. We were sitting there with cups
of tea, scanning the water for the appearance of a head, or a few tell-tale
bumps in the water. I thought it was
“we”. I pointed out a possible bump in
the distance. That’s when mum confessed
she couldn’t see anything. Loch Ness in
the summer sunshine was a grey blur.
Whatever she didn’t see in the physical world I am
convinced that God opened her eyes to the spiritual world. She had glorious visions. She saw waterfalls and rainbows in such vivid
colours. There is a cross stich picture
in the hall of mum’s flat – the work of my sister Carla after mum shared with
her some of the things she could see.
Mum’s chosen craft was not cross stitch. She was a knitter. In her later years I spent many an hour home
from Scotland, counting stitches for her, taking rows back to catch dropped
stitches. If ever my mum’s knitted jumpers, Easter chicks, Christmas tree
crackers, boots and blankets ever became collector’s items they would not be
difficult to find. My one regret is that
she discovered her Humpty-Dumpty pattern long after I had left Secondary
School. I don’t think she ever brought
her knitting with her when she visited us in Inverness. She didn’t really need to as there was a wool
shop just a few streets away. It is with
pride that I adopt her knitting needles and hope to put them to good use.
My mum was a courageous woman. When times were difficult she responded with
humour. It wasn’t that she thought
light of all her problems, but the alternative to laughing is crying and
sometimes once you start crying you can’t stop.
Her faith was a source of strength.
She prayed often.
Another way of coping with difficult times was by
singing…or humming. The humming was very
noticeable in my car when she was in the passenger seat. I would like to think
I am not a reckless driver, but there are perhaps times when I lose my
concentration. The humming took on a
slightly desperate note at those times.
These are some of my memories – you all have your
own. Take time to talk to each other and
share them. Most of you met my mum in
the autumn or the winter of her life – if you want to know what she was like in
the spring and the summer – see her in her children, her grandchildren and her
great grandchildren. She has left a
deposit of herself in each of us.
I am perhaps not the best one qualified to tell you what
my mum was like. I moved away from home
and went far away. I want to personally
thank my brother, Richard, and my sisters Carla and Sharon, my sister in law,
Linda and my brother in law, Paul, for taking good care of my mum. I also want to thank my niece, Kelly and her
husband Kenny for all the shopping trips and keeping a loving eye on her. I want to thank the great grandchildren for
trying to teach Nan to skip – they kept her young at heart. I want to thank the
members of mum’s church for loving and serving her and for allowing her to love
and serve you.
I want to thank you all for joining with my family to
remember and celebrate my mum’s life.
