Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Aunt Marg was an inspiration to me as I grew up: no matter how hard life got she always has a joke on her lips and a smile on her face. As she was so fond of saying, when life hands you a lemon make lemonade!
She clearly found great joy and satisfaction in conversing with others; family, friends and students were all rewarded by her gregarious spirit that now enjoys ever-lasting peace.
Over the past year I had spoken with her several times about her life in order to learn more about her, and to record her stories on a family website. Incidentally, if any of her relatives or close friends reading this should so wish, please contact me (tr_hartley@shaw.ca or 604-793-0606) and I will invite you to the site so that you may see these stories and the many photos of Marg...and perhaps contribute some of your own? To be found there, of special note, is her life story in which she records major events up to 1980, as well as "My Obituary." She wrote the latter in the summer of 2009...and I feel obliged to note that the title was rather presumptuously re-labelled an 'autobiography' by some well-meaning attendant at the extended care facility who understandably was set aback by the morbid--read realistic--original title provided by a woman who was never one to gloss over the harsh facts of life.
Finally, I would like to express my condolences to everyone experiencing a loss, and to Vasuki in particular. And to end this tribute, as Margaret did her "obituary," with this quote:
Whatever you do with your life--whatever you end up achieving or not achieving--the great gift you have in you to give to the world is the gift of who alone you are: your way of seeing things, and saying things and feeling about things that is like nobody else's.
--Frederick Buechner
