Christmas planning starts

Each year I turn my mind to the year end planning from mid November, straight after Shawni's birthday.

Roads trips, entertaining, holidays and Christmas.

So here I am, its time to plan.

Letters to Santa Clause were part of our routine with the kids. I have kept this particular letter written by Barry which is more than twenty years old.

What a glorious list it is, some of it a direct copy of what Shawni would have on her list, but it shows what he loved as a little boy.

He still wears takkies, which are always white, with a pair of jeans.

Looking forward to Christmas Barry and Kim!

Rings on my fingers

Nan van der Veen bequeathing her rings to Inel and me.

At times this letter project leaves me with a deep sense of regret about my younger and less thoughtful self. Mindfulness came to me much later in my life.

I have two references in the letters to rings that I inherited.

Firstly in Nan's letter from the 1 December 1969, where she leaves her wedding ring to me.

Secondly, in Mom's daily journal from her time in hospital in Hillbrow, she writes on Tuesday 23rd, (July 1974);
'I am looking forward to seeing her tonight and giving her the beautiful ring from your mother. I know she will treasure it all her life'

Mom writing about my 18th birthday gift.

The rings are lost.

What makes me even more heartsore is I have no recall of the ruby ring from my Nanny Ina that Mom was writing about.

Wearing rings at age 18.

I went digging through photos of me when I was eighteen years old and I found some black and white photos taken for a newspaper in Vanderbijlpark.
I have rings on my fingers.
I zoomed in on my hands and can make out 4 rings, I wonder if one of them is the ruby ring.

I wore Nan's wedding ring for such a long time that the band got thin and fragile. I still have a ridge on the middle finger caused by the edge of the band. I think I sent it to some jeweller for repairing but as with the ruby ring, it is no longer with me.

Fred and I were talking while on holiday in the United States earlier this year and planning a gift for Shawni's 30th birthday.

I suggested that she gets my ring that my mother left me. A gold topaz ring that my father gave Mom for one of her birthdays, I am not sure which birthday though.

Mom and Shawni are both November babies and their birthstone is topaz. So giving her the ring feels right.

'The word ‘topaz,’ birthstone for the month of November, comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “fire.” And in ancient lore, the topaz could be used to control heat. It was said to have the power to cool boiling water, as well as excessive anger.'

I find it so interesting that since the decision to gift Shawni the ring, I am now doing this letter project and rings are catching my attention. 

The wondrous ways of the universe.

So to my daughter, Shawni Maria Hadfield, I gift to you my mother's topaz ring on your 30th birthday. 

I feel you have the capacity to care for it, to enjoy it and to appreciate the link to your Nan. In some small way, this helps me close the circle on my carelessness. I love you.

...anyway don't feel to sad about nan...

Family in 1993, the year Nan died.

My family albums have cards and memorabilia dotted among the photos.

This morning I found this darling letter that I have kept from Shawni to me - Mommy! 

She is consoling me after the death of my mother in July 1993.

I can picture her finding some scraps of paper, cutting one to size, armed with her tin of crayons, most probably sitting at the kitchen table, intense and focussed on the task at hand.

'She loved us all dearly'

"We are born to love. It is the principle of existence and its only end."

Benjamin Disraeli

Daphne Estelle Wedderburn, 19 November 1933 - 3 July 1993
Our mother and grandmother. Much loved by all who knew her.

Dad's letter to his children, their spouses, grandchildren and even future grandchildren.

Mom and Shawni both have November birth dates. As we prepare for Shawni's 30th birthday, my mother has been on my mind. I would have loved her to witness the times we live in now.

She died of cancer 21 years ago.

I have this letter from Dad neatly folded in my box, the outside says 'Letter to my family', dated 12 July 1993, from Warner Beach, nine days after Mom died.

I have been reading Dad's letters and notes these past months and I realise that he is able to share his emotions and thoughts so well in letters, much more so than he does verbally. He can seem reserved and stoic but he feels deeply.

The letter is addressed to his 'Dearest Kids', 
I love the way he has put 'to be' next to the married couples. Doreen he has not yet visualised married with children, even though her relationship with Barry Philip starts soon after Mom's death.

It is a beautiful letter. 'I say without reserve that the love and respect that we had for Mom and also for each other has made it more bearable for us all.'

These family values still define us and how we interact with each other.

Dad you are correct when you wrote 'I'm sure she will always be with us.' She is.

And Dad becomes Grumps

We did break with tradition, Dad is known as Grumps and not Pa.

He looks anything but a grump in this lovely photo of my parents with the grandchildren in 1986.

Frederic du Barry born 27 May 1986.

In my thank you letter to Mom and Dad on the 20 June, I am again deeply appreciative of their support and I seem to be just coping.

The comment 'the next step is to do all the above in French' is significant, our little family was in the middle of moving to Paris for a few years.

A month later we were living in France with two children under the age of 2, no support structure, me barely speaking French, I wrote letters to the folks during the time we lived in Marly le Roi. These letters will be the content for future blogs.

Circle of life, Mom becomes Nan

Mom's album for Shawni starts with a Thank You letter I wrote her.

The year was 1984, Mom came up to Johannesburg to help us with our new born.

Looking back I do have conflicting feelings about my relationship with my Mom but seeing the open emotion of this letter written by my younger self, I have no doubt this was a special time for both of us.

Her first grandchild.

She has a photo in the album of her holding Shawni and the caption says 'I see you Nan'. 

How apt Shawni was born wide eyed with a piercing gaze.

Mom with Shawni, November 1984

The Wedderburn Aunts - Dolly

Wedderburn's at Kalkwal, 1957. No one quite ready for the picture.
 Backrow from L; Dad walking into frame, Grandpa Percy, Estelle (Mom), Yvonne, Bobby, Lynn, Heather, Ralph, Dolly
Frontrow from L: David, Ann, Bruce, me, Heather's girls, Ian (kneeling) Shirley with Dolly

Letters for the new Wedderburn Grandchild.

Aunty Dolly captivated all of us during farm holidays.

Stories of her dancing; her thousands of kilometres of travelling to her dance studios around the Free State; her and her pupils successes; her love of the movies and movie stars; her story-telling; her recall for names, dates and events; her jokes; she was glamorous; she drove fancy cars and wrote letters to famous people.

She and Mom spent many hours in the garden at Kalkwal, under the shade of the pepper tree, knitting suits.

To this day her Christmas presents make me smile, utilitarian like a toothbrush or some trinket that never seemed to make it home with us.

I notice from these letters that the Bloem crowd initially thought I was a Cheryll.

Something else I notice is our address in Vanderbijlpark, Guillet Street, an address I know nothing about.

I wonder when we moved to Gillespie Street, the home I remember.

Dolly's letter to Mom and Dad congratulates them 'on attaining your P.A and M.A. degrees'

Oh boy, 'what weight did she tip the scales at?' that question still gets asked year after year, started early indeed.

Mom, Dad and Aunty Dolly, Kalkwal.

A favourite holiday pastime on the farm, was to walk down to the Modder River to go swimming off big rock.

 Aunty Dolly died in August 2014 in Bloemfontein at the age of 87.

Shinel Jacobs, Dolly's granddaughter and Shirley's daughter at Aunty Dolly's funeral.