Good afternoon.

Thank you for coming today to honour Phyllis’s life.

Phyllis was a very kind soul, and she accepted me into the family the first time Josh brought me around. As such, even though I was family through marriage, I still had the honour of calling her Nana.

The family has asked me to share some memories that they have of their mother and grandmother. Many of the stories are in the family’s own words.

Christine, Phyllis’s oldest daughter, will cherish the simple moments with her, such as watching her and Amanda interacting, laughing and giggling together. Nana loved to talk about her Family, her Mum, Dad, Brother Aubrey, Sisters Connie and Doris, and her and Christine would talk for hours about the Family. Christine learned so much about our family history. She can still see Nana waving at her as her Bus pulled into the Kitchener Terminal.

Heather, Phyllis’s youngest daughter, has many memories of “adventures to the States”, including the times that took 4 hours to get there, and only included 4 pairs of knickers.

There are a lot of family memories tied to trips, where there were lots of stops to eat and lots of singing! There were many times where 6 people squeezed into a room only meant for 4. There was the time that the border was so backed up that Nana and Jill were getting hungry and actually asked the neighboring cars if they would share their crackers! There was a very special birthday trip to NYC with Amanda, Christine, and Phyllis, which was the first time to NYC for all three of them.

John recalls one of their shipping trips to the States, when they bought a frozen Butterball turkey at Tops grocery store. They were moving the frozen turkey from the shopping cart to a cooler that was in the car and it dropped onto the pavement. It started to roll down the parking lot. They all started running after the rolling turkey. They managed to get the bird safely into the car. They were all laughing so hard they had tears! It was times like this Nana enjoyed and laughed about it many years later.

Nana loved all 4 of her grandchildren very, very much, even if she did have trouble calling them the proper name. All 4 of them mentioned trips, shopping with her, and sleepovers where they watched things like I Love Lucy, where they playing cards all night and where they played dress-up.

There were also some special memories that are unique to each grandchild:

-          Jessica remembers the time when she saw her mom and Nana at what she thought was a normal school assembly. Turns out that she was receiving a special award that day, and Nana had come out to watch her receive that award

-          Mandy’s most cherished memory is having Nana present on her wedding day. Not everyone is as lucky to have a Grandparent present on the most special day of a Girls life.

-          Unsurprisingly, some of Jillian’s fondest memories are of Christmas morning with Nana

-          Josh has memories of watching Hockey Night in Canada with Nana. He says he’s not sure if she actually even liked hockey, but he enjoyed watching the games with her during their sleepovers together

-          I’m going to take the opportunity to throw in my own memory at this point. We have her collection of vinyl records, most of which are showtunes. She loved showtunes, as do I

Another common thread in the family’s memories of Nana is her love of dessert, especially chocolates. This love of sweets, specifically chocolate, very clearly lives on in her great grandchildren, Emilie & Monte.

I think everyone in this room has a story about Nana’s sense of humour or of her contagious laugh. Sometimes, you just couldn’t help but to laugh along with her. She loved a good laugh, and she loved to make a good joke.

Keep on laughing, Nana.

So, until next we meet again, “Two Thumbs Up”

And, as she always said, “if we don’t see you through the week, we will see you through the window”.

Rest in peace, Nana.

God bless