Dearly departed

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

My mother apparently told my father, when they got married, that he had better be resigned to only having daughters, coming as he was from a family of predominately girls. Second in a family of 7, he was the only surviving boy, his brother having died in infancy. Just him and Grandad with all dem wimminfolks.

And while Grandad might have produced a son as well as a daughter from his second marriage, by the time we were both born only having two daughters wasn't really unexpected.

I couldn't say that I knew he had a favourite sister, as I think they are all equally special to him for their own unique talents and personalities. I think their growing up spanning the Depression probably helped make the bonds that continue to tie the generations together across the families that make up The Family.

One of his sisters, Louise, had a fine talent for the spoken and written word. Throughout her life, she was surrounded by people of words - writers, singers, public figures, civil servants and the diplomatic community. As a young woman and the wife of a foreign diplomat, she lived in countries around the world and became a single mother to three young girls when her husband passed away. Later, once more as a wife, with History in her veins, she traveled to collate data on our Family Tree that produced several fantastic books.

As a mother, she buried one of the young women she'd raised and watched the other two spread their wings and take off to explore the world. She saw one become a mother in her turn.

Wife, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, cousin and much respected and admired aunt; all these roles she fulfilled and fulfilled them admirably. Today, cancer took her from us.

Louise
31 of August, 1937 - 31st of March 2009.

What a dash, Louise.