Wednesday 16th March

This is the last post. Thank you so much to all of you who managed to get to Jane's funeral celebration today; we were overwhelmed by all your love and prayers. It is as Jane would have wanted.

Leo's tribute:

"These are words that I have thought about saying for years. My Great hope is that what I say now is what my Mother knew when she departed.

In one sense I think there is only one thing I can say about my Mother. My Mother was amazing. I shall repeat that in the present tense because even now, from her distant perch, her love has brought you here. My Mother is amazing.

She amazed me; she amazed my Father, my sister, my cousins, my Granddad and Nana, My Uncle and Aunt.

She amazed doctors, vicars, friends, acquaintances and she even amazed herself.

She was amazing because she defied expectations; she tore down the graphs of medical austerity that decreed ‘here is your condition and here are our estimates’. She refused to cower in the shadow of a cruel disease. She refused to be defined by her illness.

She was amazing because she held our family together, through faith and forgiveness and unconditional love she bound us.

She was amazing because she always wanted to learn and grow and to help others to do so. She was a teacher and as all great teachers she was an eternal student.

She was amazing because no matter how ill she was she could always manage a bit of chocolate…or custard.

She was amazing because she was human and could get cross. I remember a hectic school day morning dashing around our house in Odiham. Her struggling to get my sister and I, aged 5 and 7, into the car. She lost her temper and shouted at us but when she got into the car she turned to us and said.

“I’m sorry for shouting children, but you know I love you don’t you?”

“Yes”-said Lydia.

“No” said I.

She repeated the question.

“Leo! You know I love you don’t you?”

I measured my response for maximum impact.

“NO YOU DON’T YOU WISH MY EYES WOULD DROP OUT!”

She was amazing because she knew the value of life. She never lost the battle to cancer. Her body could no longer bare the weight of her soul. Her soul that was full to the brim with a love that kept her here. A love that seems to have rippled out and returned with all of you. A love so great, that when it came to the end it was unspeakable. Words simply cannot convey the feeling. To understand it would be to understand the universe. She was amazing because of that love.

She was amazing because she was my Mum".

I found the following, an extract from John Austin Baker's book:

I rest on God, who will assuredly not allow me to find the meaning of life in his love and forgiveness, to be wholly dependent on Him for the gift of myself, and then destroy that meaning, revoke that gift. He who holds me in existence now can and will hold me in it still, through and beyond the dissolution of my mortal frame. For this is the essence of love, to affirm the right of the beloved to exist. And what God affirms, nothing and no-one can contradict.

And this poem by Carol Ann Duffy called "Prayer":

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift....

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.....

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

Rockall. Mallin. Dogger. Finisterre.

It has been an amazing journey. Thanking you all for sharing the ride and supporting us so wonderfully.

God bless you all.