Marie Therese MacLaren Walsh

Marie Maclaren

I am continually amazed at the things I learn about myself. The past four weeks have been full of highs and lows, from one extreme to the other.

On 24th February 2017 my mother Marie Therese MacLaren Walsh, died. Mum died in Sydney at the Mark Moran aged care facility, a beautiful home by the ocean in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.   Mum had lived a full, rich and rewarding life. Most women born in the 1920's became remarkable women, living through the Depression and World War II and onward through the 50's, 60's 70's up until today.

Mum was born on 16th August 1928. When my mother died three weeks ago, so many of my thoughts and emotions shifted regarding this remarkable woman who nurtured and raised me, along with my eight siblings. I was never the model child, a disappointment to my parents really. I guess I was always fighting to be heard and seeking attention in the milieu of a large Catholic family.  All disappointments aside, my mother is gone and I realise how much I really do love her and how much I will miss her intelligence, witty quips and gorgeous little laugh. My father loved that laugh. At mum's beautiful funeral on Friday 3rd March, I read Remember by Christina Rossetti:

Remember me when I am gone away,

         Gone far away into the silent land;

         When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

         You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

         Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

         For if the darkness and corruption leave

         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

         Than that you should remember and be sad.

 

VALE MUM