John Stokes wrote the following paragraphs, and is happy for me to put them on the blog. I read them out on his behalf at the funeral today.
1. As teenagers, Mark Anngow and I were best mates and we used to gather at our place to do teenage boy things with other boys. On this particular day were playing 3 card brag in my room when Mum walked past, saw what we were doing, and went away to get the paper money to join us. Which she did. With her quiet spoken, gentle way she proceeded to give the know-all boys a valuable, and valued, lesson in not taking anyone for granted - she cleaned us out in very short order!! I had, of course, forgotten that Mum was a very skilled card player who had a killer instinct; she taught me how to play, and to win with a self effacing good humour. More importantly, she could lose with a dignity that eludes me to this day - at Euchre, 500 and crib. Crib became a favourite while I was still living at home. I also recollect that, by and large, it was our place my friends and I would repair to after a hard day at school... until Mark got his driver’s license and an old Austin Cambridge, and school became something to avoid....
2. Just to hark back to the quiet, gentle spoken woman everyone remembers, I can remember a time when she was, in fact, neither....
I had drunk a little more than was good for me at a work 'do' on a weeknight in Dunedin and was - not to put too fine a point on it – paralytic. Dad had to drive into Dunedin to pick me up and take me home with inevitable stops on the way. I can't remember too much about the evening but I do recall the morning after when I was going to call in sick - well, I was!! - and Mum came through the door of the sleepout like the sergeant-major of every soldier’s nightmares and read me the Riot Act. Rather sheepishly - with head hung low, I went to work that morning on the same train as Dad - I think!! - who I'm sure looked remarkably smug as he didn't have to say a word about my immature behaviour. It had all been said with an eloquence, brevity and volume that he would never be able to match!
There are many, many more such examples - and I'm sure the girls and Paul have their own particular twists to add, but these two sum up, for me, what Mum was all about; quietly able to work some kind of magic on a teenage boy/young man; providing a stability that was needed and a love that was overt without being cloying. I would not be who I am now without her guiding hand. There were many times when the world’s problems were solved at the sink doing the evening dishes, when teenage heartache became a life lesson without judgment and, later on, during one or two events in my life I could have done without, such support as I was never able to get anywhere else... Mum, you will live in my heart forever and your quiet smile will forever brighten my days....
