Mornings

I will miss the mornings. 

The mornings with Mum – they were different in December. I would hear her shuffling upstairs, and lying on the blue room, I could see if there was a light on, if she was up and going or just in the bathroom.

The  Dex - “Dexamethasone”  (or the bomb, as Mum called it), were really turbo for her, releasing her from the tiring fatigue that she was feeling. It drained her. “I am so tired of feeling tired”, she said. Not even being able to make tapenade, without sitting down. That was one of the very few times I saw her sad about not being able to do what she wanted. She just sat down at the kitchen table, with her head between her hands, and said, I guess I am going to have to accept that this does not get much better.  

So she stopped making tapenade. And she took many naps. And enjoyed lying on the leather couch with the fire going and candles lit. We thought she was sleeping sometimes, but iften we were surprised. Her hearing got almost even better! Listening to what we were saying in the kitchen even….. J

But the mornings – this was when she was awake and AT IT. She went into her “den”, turned on the little oven and got the heat going, and then she sorted out. Files, address books, who is to call who, pictures (she was a bit too ruthless here, so we had to go through and retrieve girl guide photo albums from 1945!), printer and PC manuals, photoshop books for the Photo group on the island, and magazines for GIRO. She sorted out.

And then   I would poke my nose in the door, or we would, one or two siblings, and we had  special times. We closed the door as to not wake George (sometimes it was 3 am, other times it was 4:30 am.). She zipped into talking mode. Storytelling, and almost could not stop. Stories about her life, her jewelry, about Dad, about travels, about her work, about her reflections on her cancer, on her dying, on us kids, our spouses, on letting go of life, on the wonderful life she has had. She talked, we listened, asked questions, and once in a while we got to get a cup of café latte for her  and one for us too.

Towards the end, (the first week in January) we had hot rums (half an ounce for Mum) at about 01:20 – 2 am. And then she would sleep again for a few or some hours.

The mornings were special times. Talking, coffee, more talking, and then breakfast – a soft boiled egg – ala Erik or Svend. And Mum had her toast with cheese (caraway, if possible) and a bit of marmelade.  And in there somewhere a bit of “fresh air”.  The topics at breakfast would vary – but always on the agenda – what will we have for dinner tonight? -....  What plans do you have for today? 

The mornings were special. 

Thanks for developing this website Barb

Barb,

Just a quick note to thank you for developing this website, and providing a way for us to link together and weave some of our memories into a “virtual quilt”.

Kath

Kath Murray RN, MA, CHPCN(C), FT

Life and Death Matters

www.lifeanddeathmatters.ca

250 652 6786

Twitter @LDMatters

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Great grandkids

 

Mario one month old

 

Kathia, Alvin (1,5 years), Mario (6 months)

 

Mums Great grandkids

Psalm - Dejlig er jorden "Beauty around us"

We sang this danish psalm at the memorial - in english and danish.

http://www.dendanskesalmebogonline.dk/salme/121 

You can push a little button on the bottom left "Afspil" and hear the melody.  
The song has been translated to English.
Here are the two verses we sang at the memorial.

Beauty around us, glory above us, lovely is earth and the smiling skies. Singing we pass along pilgrims upon our way. Through these fair lands Paradise.	Dejlig er jorden, prægtig er Guds himmel, skøn er sjælenes pilgrimsgang! Gennem de fagre riger på jorden gå vi til paradis med sang!
Ages are coming, roll on and vanish. Children shall follow where mothers passed. Never our pilgrim song, joyful and heaven born, shall cease while time and mountain last.	Tider skal komme, tider skal henrulle, slægt skal følge slægters gang. Aldrig forstummer tonen fra himlen i sjælens glade pilgrimssang.

Memorial from Lissi and Ib, Denmark

Four score and two years ago, my dear sister Jette was born, and four score less six years I came after. It has been an unusual relationship we have had, as we have lived so very far apart since 1949.
And yet, also very close.  Jette kept very close ties to Denmark, and over the years we have achieved very close ties to Jette's family, kids, spouses, friends, etc.  And not just Jette and the people around her. We have also come to love where she chose to settle: Vancouver, Gabriola, Victoria - and the occasional visits to the Rockies and Alberta.  
And we are so fortunate as to have  Barb in Denmark since 1975.
We reminisce about our many visits, here and there. About staying together, traveling together, talking, cooking, playing cards, getting mad, making up, talking, going for walks, -  more talking, more cooking, a few more walks. Serious times, fun times. We loved it all.

We want to express our gratitude to Jette, to George, to Erik, Barb, Kath, and Mike, to their spouses, and to all the friends we know for your hospitality, generosity, warmth, and love over the years.

Love to you all,Ib and Lissi

MAKING FRIENDS WITH GONE (YETTA) FROM Shari Ulrich

(MOST) ALL THE FOODS BEEN PUT AWAY
A LITTLE SOUP LEFT ON THE STOVE
I HEAR THE LAST CAR LEAVING
DOWN THE DRIVEWAY AND UP THE ROAD
IT’S SO SWEET OF JIM AND JOAN
TO MAKE A TRIP SO LONG
I GUESS NOW I’LL BE MAKING FRIENDS WITH GONE

THE FLOWERS THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL
AND EVERYONE SO KIND
I THOUGHT HOW YOU’D HAVE LOVED TO SEE
SO MANY DEAR FRIENDS AT ONE TIME
AFTER ALL THE STORIES
AND THE TOASTS TILL NEARLY DAWN
I GUESS NOW I’LL BE MAKING FRIENDS WITH GONE

I’M SO GLAD WE HAD THOSE LAST DAYS
LAUGHING & CRYING & THE JOKES YOU MADE
LIKE EVERY TIME YOU DROVE AWAY
YOU SAID I LOVE YOU
WE CALLED OUT WE LOVE YOU TOO

JUST A LITTLE LONGER NOW
I DON’T WANT TO GO TO BED
MAYBE JUST ANOTHER WALK
DOWN COOPER ROAD INSTEAD
IF ANYBODY ASKS YOU JUST HOW I’M GETTING ON
TELL THEM I’M STILL MAKING FRIENDS WITH GONE
NOW, FOREVER MAKING FRIENDS WITH GONE
See more of Shari at http://www.shariulrich.com/

Walters speach at the Memorial

Proverbs 31 from the 10th verse:
10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
14 She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
16 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
18 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
19 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
20 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
23 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

I need hardly rehearse for all of you how evocative of Yetta these verses are.  I am sure as I read them you thought of the stunning clothes – “She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.” 

Or perhaps you thought of the magnificent wall hangings – “She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.” And many of us are recipients of the fabulous
quilts  - “She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.” And did she not make sure that all of us were part of her household. 

But perhaps you missed the connections to the wonderful fabrics that Yetta worked with her hands because you were preoccupied with the references that evoke all the delicious food we ate that Yetta prepared, she did indeed bringeth food from afar and did rise up early to give meat to her household and to many others.  Many of us will remember Yetta arriving at events heavily laden with all the glorious food she had prepared.  And while I don’t think Yetta ever planted a vineyard; few of us can think of her without remembering the magical gardens. 

This afternoon her children have indeed risen up and called her blessed and they have testified to the praise, support, love, and honour she received from George.

Yetta truly was a virtuous woman who was worth more than rubies or, indeed, all of Aladdin’s cave of fine jewels.By the way, I should tell you that when plans for today
were first discussed, I suggested to Barb that I thought Proverbs 31 was very apt.  The message was relayed to Yetta and the proverb read to her.  Now Yetta’s
hearing was not at its best, and when the line “her price is above rubies” was read, she cried out, “Her vice is what?”

There is one verse of this proverb that may not seem quite so appropriate to you:
“…but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.” It is no secret that Yetta was not a conventionally religious woman; she did not adhere to particular doctrines and
sectarianism attracted only her contempt.  To quote a  wonderful piece of graffiti I saw at the Cheesecake Restaurant on Granville Street over thirty years ago, Yetta’s attitude to organized religion could be summed up as “My karma just ran over your dogma.”
Nearly 200 years of excessive literalism in biblical understanding has robbed us of so much richness of meaning in the first translations of scripture into English.  In the early 17th century fear of the lord meant an awareness of the holy or of the divine,  a sense of that
there is more than can be seen or touched.  And holiness for the authors of the King James Bible meant the innermost reality in which all other realities are related.  For as much as dread and terror were synonyms for fear, so too were awe, reverence, love, trust, adoration.
I never knew anyone with a greater sense of that there is more, a greater sense of the mysteries that connect us, a greater sense of the beauty in creation and a greater sense
of calling to create beauty in creation than Yetta. I shall always remember the beauty in gardens, in meals, in clothes, in houses, and in the reaching out with beauty
to those for whom its creation was more difficult or more elusive. Yetta feared the lord in the best of its 17th century meaning.  She approached creation with awe, with reverence, and with participation. 

The death notice tells us that Yetta approached her death with curiosity and openness.  When last I visited her, she spoke of dying as a beautiful and precious time.

When we spend time with each other today, there will be tears.  But let us make sure that smiles come through those tears because we love Yetta Lees Strasdine and she loves us and that is very beautiful and a cause for much joy.

Happy Birthday, Yetta!

Ann Robertson's speach at Mums memorial

Dear Yetta

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
. . .
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
. . .
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Dear Yetta – our dear, beloved Yetta – you most certainly did NOT “simply visit this world”. You took on this miraculous gift of Life with your arms and heart and mind wide open in amazement and love.

Your whole life, you embraced Life with courage and passion and a sense of adventure. You took huge risks, always – particularly risks of the heart.

With care and creativity and grace, you continually wove community around you – even in your dying. Your bold warrior-woman spirit emboldened all of us to think more expansively, love more expansively and act in the world more expansively. You would not allow us to settle for being comfortable or complacent in our good fortune and privilege.

 

And, your values and commitments, Yetta, were not just abstract ideas but catalysts for action in the world – the Queen’s House, Delphi, Circle Craft, CESO, Bokenbaevo, the Gabriola Commons. You were the kind of person the poet, Marge Piercy, was surely thinking of when she wrote:

“I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.”

Your sense of family did not begin and end with biology or legalities. And, for those of us lucky enough to become part of your constellation, we were bound forever by the gravitational pull of your faithful, loving heart.

For me, personally, that meant that there you were, beside me, at many of my own life’s turning points – holding me up as we buried Denton, hosting my wedding feast and, at one of the lowest points of  my life, showing up on my doorstep with Hector, week after week, to take me tromping the ravines and trails until I was exhausted and then feeding me one of your hearty, nourishing soups.

Yetta, your huge, brave heart and spirit encompassed it all – encompassed all of us. And now you are gone from us. But your legacy of ever-expanding love, fierce courage and endless curiousity will continue to inspire us and prod us, as you have always done.

May we all, as did you to the end, live our lives “married to amazement”, “taking the world into [our] arms”.

Farewell, our dear, beloved Yetta.

Leith Leslie's speach at the memorial service

Yetta –my friend of 45 years-that strong woman we all know, with her remarkable  skills and accomplishments.  And after the last  2 months,  I  think mostly  of the “heart” stories of our lives and the influence of Yetta’s  great generosity of spirit and her role as a “knitter of community”.

We first met over our involvements in draft dodger issues in Vancouver about 1969.  Since that time, we have lived together, worked together, talked, cried, laughed together, as friends do.

She was always generous with her “darn projects” and we would grumble about that good humouredly.  Really, those projects were about her passions, skills as an initiator, and her love of working with people. I myself was always “in” for these projects. I do love a project and working with people myself, so we had many adventures together.
The first of these began when she, with Barb and Mike, joined our project, a kind of intentional farming community- “commune”- in Gibson’s Landing.  Most of us involved in that  2+ years experiment came out of that “pressure cooker” as we later referred to it, with new ideas, skills and directions in our lives.
For Yetta that was crafts. Hand-block-printed clothing which we made  and sold at those early fairs with the help of a LIP grant.  This later became Circle Craft Cooperative which had its beginnings in Victoria with the Fibres Festival, and Open Space Christmas markets. Then onto the first Christmas market at Vancouver East Cultural Centre- little did we know then, it would become the large and successful Circle Craft  market of today!   A three year LEAP grant allowed a group of us to focus and solidify the craft scene all over BC, culminating with the Yetta’s largest project, Habitat Craft Fair.  Then Yetta stepped away from Circle Craft knowing it was time for it to go its own way, which it did with great success.

After retirement from her own business and her teaching, she returned to that craft world again. She worked for CESO and was sent to Kyrgyzstan  to bring her craft marketing skills to a co-op of woman there.  She came back saying that what they needed most was markets.  Several of us came up with that project, and Friends of Bokonbaevo emerged. Soon  we all were lugging beautiful felt rugs, slippers, scarves, to many craft fairs again. Finally these past few years on Gabriola, Yetta who always has been an artist, was finally seeing herself as one. What a joy to watch her delve into her own creative work.

And then there were her homes, also projects, full of her creativity with colour and space.  She has always shared her homes with ease and comfort. All of us were welcome and this was still so, up until the very last on Gabriola.

I remember coming to Vancouver years ago at some late hour, ringing her intercom at midnight, waking her to ask if I could sleep on her couch or floor. From the intercom came, “Hurray, no one ever does this to me in Toronto!”  Those were tough years in Toronto and she missed her west coast community so much.

She shared all of her homes and the projects of construction and reconstruction with Tom-Sawyer-like largesse. I think we need to confess that mostly we all loved it. Building her house in Gibsons, the reconstruction of Roseberry, the North Vancouver house,  and of course the finale- Stalker Rd. That was truly the peak community effort for so many of us with she and  Eric managing the construction.

There were times when I would groan as the reality would hit me. Oh no, another house project. When I saw that plaid wall paper in the North Vancouver house she had just bought, I felt nothing but overwhelmed, but Yetta of course felt greatly challenged and could easily see how it would look renovated. A key difference between us.

Yetta knew know how to make beauty in so many ways - homes, objects of all kinds, clothes, gardens, food. In contrast to many creative people it was often not an individual thing for her.  Again her generous  spirit. The ideas, design, the process, the end product, were all to be joyfully shared. Often shared widely. A project could be a small idea  with a few people and go quickly to a cast of hundreds like the Habitat Craft Fair.
As good long time friends we have been in each of our lives, as we have changed jobs, raised our children, fell apart, pulled ourselves together, dithered about  decisions. Well I dithered- she offered her insightful questions.  “Do you really need to have answers to 95% of the questions before you make a decision?”  Yetta  listened to me, hugged me, said wise words to me, or sharp words. That was rare, but it was fierce. Once when that happened and I  got over the shock, I realized I gotten darn close to being a family member!  

So we have been friends and family for each other.  That closeness was grounded during that crazy time that was the 60’s and 70’s. Hippies, the counter culture, alternative life styles - all those words that have been laid on after that time and will never come close to describing the  connection.  So much deeper, life changing  than can be said in words. We shared our lives in ways that others may never understand and sometimes now, we don’t either! We shared houses, ideas, our cars, our clothes, our work, belongings- for years later I would find some cutlery I got as a wedding present in the kitchen drawer in all of her houses. I always found that comforting.

Throughout  this big life she came to know so many people. Once Walter and I went to a movie with her in Vancouver. We came out  and immediately met a several people she knew, then down the street to another several and the further to another. Walter rolled his eyes at me and said, “I knew I should have brought a book.”  During what she called this last 2 months, her  “gift of time”,  she visited with and heard from so many of those people. We have  learned to appreciate her connectedness from which we benefitted so much. We shared Yetta, and found new friends ourselves. She knitted community.

We have shared her dying as we had shared her life. Being with Yetta  and her family this past few months has been life changing for me. She went through this final “passion” with familiar stamina and courage, mind and heart fully engaged. She was ready to talk about and to live this final adventure with openness to the experience and  her community.  She showed the mature graces of determination, wisdom, clarity, gratitude and love. She knew she had lead a full life, nothing more needed to be said or done – she was ready. A great gift to me from my friend. And to all of us.
Right now a special  gratitude to Erik, Kath, Barb, and Michael who also know how to knit community.  This time we have had together has been a great help to me with the large Yetta-sized hole that is left in my  heart. I guess I have been holding onto you, her children, this week because it will be hard for us all now to go our ways. Here with you four, I am constantly reminded of Yetta. She is so present in your voices, your eyes, humour, stamina, courage, intensity, the beauty of the things you all create, and especially in your generosity of heart. When you miss her take a look around at each other, then at all your children, your grand  grandchildren. There she is in them  in a look, a gesture, another crazy project, an event that is planned with such unbelievable ease.  They are cooking wonderful food, perhaps building a house where they have somehow talked all their friends into helping them. Another darn project that they go after with great passion.

Today we miss you Yetta. Celebrate you. Tell each other stories about  how much you have meant in our lives.

From friends

Dear Eric, Barbara, Kathy, and Mike,
Mum and I will always remember the truly beautiful celebration of Yetta's life. For the Nesbit family, her influence continues to reverberate through the years, through Christmas decorations, felts in all our homes, other delightful crafts, and many, many, happy memories from years past. How fortunate we are! As always with Love, Helen and Susan

Kaths speach at the Memorial

Happy Birthday Mom!

Barb spoke of “Making Love” – a phrase that has new meaning to each of us, and will represent something Yetta learned and taught in her last months…

Words that speak to me of her dying are curiousity, courage and grace. 

She loved learning…. Both formal and informal.  She loved teaching …. Both formal and informal.  She learned on the computer - photo shop, computerized embroidery, simply accounting…  She learned from books, travel, and courses.  Mostly she learned from people. When she spoke about teaching her stories were all about learning. She was creative and curious in matching strategies to meet the learning needs of the individual student.

In her dying she was curious about the process.  When Dr Carr told her that she had a terminal illness, she immediately asked, “How long do I have?” and “What will it look like?”

She was curious about the caregiving.  I expect that she was analyzing us all and writing a narrative exploring the experience of dying, and the observed experience of caregiving.

She was curious about concepts. She played with the term “It takes a village to raise a child.” And for several days she would say “It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a community to die…. No, that does not work.  We need another word there… what is it?”

Finally one day she said “I know, It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to do the dying”.  Eventually she said to her friend Dell “It takes a village raise a child and it takes a village to embrace dying.” 

I think of her courage.  Courage is not always pretty. Courage is to “feel the fear and do it anyway”.   Yetta was as complex as was curious and as courageous as she was complex.  She had fears, she had issues, she had baggage… just like the rest of us.  But in life adventures she felt the fear and did it anyway.

·       Move to Canada at 19 and take on a sales job responsible for all of Western Canada … let’s do it!

·       Build a house and garden out of a small patch of forest at 60+ … let’s do it!

·       Go to Morocco at 80 with her husband, drive across the desert, get on a horribly uncomfortable camel… let’s DO it…!

·       Face death and “do it well”…. she did it.

Yetta was curious, she was courageous.  Yetta was a fighter.  It is interesting to me then that one of the most recent lessons she has taught me is about dying with grace.

(I chose to include this thought about GRACE with the hope that we might consider the song Amazing Grace with additional insight.)

In 2004 I took a course titled “Dying with Grace”.   I thought, “Who would give a course such a title? Who would consider themselves worthy to teach such a course?  And if they think that they will teach me to die with grace then good luck!”  The woman who taught the course was a bio ethicist who Yetta would have loved.  She defined Grace as “unmerited favor”.  As we learned together, I came to wonder if “Dying with Grace” was about showing unmerited favor to life, to God, to one another. I wondered if Dying with Grace was about showing kindness when it is not deserved, and if it was about not being bitter when illness comes to visit. 

Yetta faced her diagnosis and death with grace.  She said, “I am 81 and life does not owe me anything…”  She said “I am glad they did not offer me surgery or radiation therapy. If they could prolong my life another month or two or three, I would still have to die… so the money should be used for better things.”   In fact she befriended death and invited the process to teach her.  She then announced “I am going to die well”.  When I asked her what “Dying Well” meant she said simply, “Relationships”. 

Throughout the past two months she described this period of her life as the most beautiful. She said that she could not have planned it better!  In her last days, the last days when she was still able to speak her words were of gratitude and appreciation.  
Yetta taught me more about dying with grace, and in the process taught me yet-ta nother lesson about living.
Oh Amazing Grace!

Thank you Yetta.

(from Kath)

Speach by Suzanne & Philippe Barois on 26 January 2013

Yetta was a free spirited, independent woman who gave generously of her self, her time & her talent to people and causes around the world. She had a world vision and understanding, but was, at the same time, a family oriented person and a close friend to many.
She was a master at weaving community and when she met George, she was welcomed into a clan over 50 people strong: siblings, children, grandchildren and their spouses. The numbers did not daunt her; she was exhilarated to meet so many others who shared her love for George.
We were happy for George, enriched as he was by Yetta's presence in his life, her dowry of interesting and loving friends, and her adventurous spirit and vacation planning skills. We remember fondly her vivid descriptions of their trips, especially the anecdotes of places and of encounters with people.
Our family was blessed to be recipients of Yetta’s love; she opened her arms to all of us, and was genuinely concerned for our welfare. She applauded our diversity and nurtured relationships where she could. Her tolerant and accepting nature inclined her to welcome each and all to hearth and home, fully respectful of individual choices.
The blending of families is a mysterious alchemy and Yetta stirred the pot and made it bubble. She added new and different perspectives for seeing the world and relating to people. Her colorful, creative and cultured lifestyle was observed by our family with appreciation and wonder, and served to influence and inspire many of us in positive ways.
Yetta was sincerely interested in us - our own lives and our activities. Most importantly, she chose to see the best in each one of us. She was particularly interested in establishing meaningful and deeper contact with the younger ones, keeping abreast of their plans, aspirations and opinions. And here I’d like to quote a passage from an email message we received yesterday from our 21-year-old daughter, Madeleine:
“One thing that always amazed me about Yetta was her ability to focus on you in a conversation, genuinely interested in what you had to say, making you feel truly valued and worthy of great things. For an insecure young girl like me, still trying to find her path in life, this kind of attention and encouragement from someone I so admired was invaluable.”
Fare thee well Yetta. We shall miss you dearly and remember you fondly, forever grateful for the love and care you bestowed upon us all. Written by Suzanne Barois (Neé Susan Anne Strasdine) Presented by Suzanne & Philippe Barois on 26 January 2013 at the Unitarian Church

Pictures from december 2012

Dear friends
Mum felt that the last period in her life was so wonderful.
Here are some of the pictures from early december.
Love Barb

Barbs talk at the Memorial Service

We are now here. Finally. Very final.. Standing at the memorial service for our dear mother, Georges wife,. For some a bonus mother, others a sister and sister / mother in law  to some, grandmother and greatgrandmother to some. To many  a very good friend,  to some a colleague, others an acquaintance. To many  a project and community worker.


She was a person that influenced many people in their meeting with her.  I want to express our deep gratitude to you for coming here today and sharing this memorial service with us, and to say goodbye.

One of Mums comments during her short illness ws “What a wonderful gift this last phase of my life has been”. During this time she received cards and emails, from many of you, and I will here weave a few of these words into an “oral quilt”.
She had a fine eye for beauty, she saw the world with the delight and wonder of a child. she thrived on creative projects. She was a magnificent planner, so much that we sometimes got tired just thinking of her planning desires.

She was a woman with empathy, wisdom, kindness and had an overflowing generous spirit, and had an ability to make and keep wonderful friends, wherever she was.  This gave her a network of people all over the world.

She was fiercely intelligent, not easy to hide anything from.  A week before her death, she caught little brother Mike in cheating in wizard.

She loved and was loved by many people. In her last months she basked in this love, and she talked about her life as being a life of making love, thinking that this has become such a limited word in our world, usually having sexual assosiations. But mum said, there is so much love without it being sexual, and so much sex with never making love. She saw her life as making love.

We will miss her, with sorrow and with love. We will also take her  with us, and ask ourselves, “what would Mum /Yetta  say about that?”

A Gabriola woman wrote “Good memories are so important, we need to keep them and embroider them with some forgetmenots to remember, roses for sweetness, fireweed for toughness and a few brambles to keep us alert”.

Thank you for contributions to this email quilt.  We have made a site for a virtual quilt and memories – www.rememberingyetta.com

Thank you, for all that you gave Mum in her life, some / a lot of which she has shared with us and passed on to so many people.

Though her body is gone, our relationships with her and each other will continue. Thank you.

I made a mistake in writing sister Kaths email address.
The correct adress is kath@lifeanddeathmatters.ca
Kath can be contacted here: http://www.lifeanddeathmatters.ca/

Obituary

STRASDINE, Yetta Lees (nee Olesen) Died on Gabriola Island surrounded by family. She faced death with curiosity and openness, like everything else in her life. Predeceased by her first husband John Lees, and survived by husband George Strasdine, children Erik Lees (Kathi), Barbara Lees (Svend), Kath Murray (Ted), Michael Lees (Maree), sister-in-law Frances Montgomery and 26 grand/great grandchildren. Yetta was a teacher (Capilano and Seneca Colleges), business woman, and a fibre artist. From West Vancouver where she raised her family, to Victoria where she founded Circle Craft Cooperative, later to Canada's north, Kyrgyzstan, and finally to her home on Gabriola Island she loved community and wove many circles of friends and colleagues. Yetta would be delighted in lieu of flowers for contributions to be sent to www.gabriolaCommons.ca A Memorial will be held on Saturday, January 26 at the Vancouver Unitarian Church, Oak & 49th, at 1 PM.