Dear Mother

You are a leading light in my life. You always will be, even though you are looking down on us today. Your ways of showing your incredible strength. Your kindness. Your understanding. Your support, but not in an overpowering way. Your incredible warmth. Your unconditional love. Your grace and elegance. Your openness to all you meet. Your everlasting smile. Above all, your everlasting smile.

If I am half the person you are when my time is up, I will have honoured your name, and I shall look at you and embrace you for the wonderful Mother you have been.

I will remember you for our times together as a family, the family you nurtured so well. The long days of summer on Daymer Bay. The tellings off for coming home with school trousers covered in mud after a lunch time kick-about. The sheer shock on your face when I drove over the front lawn when learning to drive. The evenings hosted at home in Kenilworth, in particular always giving time to every one of the school friends that came around. Your face when you said goodbye to me when I started University; something Giselle and I are repeating now with our children.

It's that letting go that hurts, but you have not left us. You are in all our hearts. In our faces. In the way we act and conduct ourselves. No fuss. No flashiness. Just a love for those around you, that endures forever no matter what.

I am not going to miss you; I am going to draw on your unbelievable strength to strive to do better for my family. Something I have been drawing on all my life.

"Say not in Grief that she is no more, but live in thankfulness that she was....................."

With love forever,

Nigel