Kiss Me Goodnight, Sargeant Major

This past week has been a rough one.

My beloved Nanna died on Wednesday night. She was sick for a while, and I have never experienced anyone dying like she did. In my previous experience with death, my other grandparents, they simply died. Granny died in her sleep, and Papa passed in his orchard. Both deaths were shocking and both were sudden. But Nanna was 93, had a stroke several years before, and had been faltering for the past few weeks. We have spent the past week waiting for that call saying she'd passed. It came Wednesday night.

I take some solace in her death. She is now free of all turmoil on earth. She is safely in God's hands, where she always wanted to be. She will be surrounded by love at all times, and not just those few times she spent at our house when we were growing up. She will be surrounded by joy and peace all the time now. I take comfort in that.

What has made her death harder for me, though, is the fact she is not getting a funeral. My aunt and uncle don't see the need for one, and have not planned one. There hasn't even been a viewing at the funeral home, even though Nanna was a well-known and well-loved woman in St. John's. How scandalous that a woman's life is reduced to ten lines in an obit. There is no celebration for her life and love of her. There are no hymns sung in her memory, which, as anyone who knew her can tell you, she would have loved and wanted. She deserves more, and it is a shame her own family could not see that. Shame on them. I only hope when their time comes, someone treats them with more dignity than they showed their own mother.

A few short years ago, Nanna asked me to read "Crossing the Bar" by Lord Tennyson at her funeral. Since her inconsiderate and heartless son and daughter did not see the need to honour their mother, I will read that poem to her myself. I will light a candle, say a prayer to her, and read her the poem she wanted.

Nanna meant the world to me. She was always singing and laughing, and quick with a tale to tell. I felt unconditional love from her at all times. In April, she told me it was time to "settle down and take a man's name". I met Byron a couple weeks later. She was magical, lyrical, and bright. I will carry her in my heart always, and make sure my children and grandchildren know what a wonderful woman she was. I will pass on her stories, and her joie de vivre. Nanna's memory will live on in my life forever.

Kiss me goodnight, Sargeant Major. Tuck me in my little wooden bed.
Adoringly Yours,
xoxoSallyt