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The Memorial Candle Program has been designed to help offset the costs associated with the hosting this Tribute Website in perpetuity. Through the lighting of a memorial candle, your thoughtful gesture will be recorded in the Book of Memories and the proceeds will go directly towards helping ensure that the family and friends of Selma Hahn can continue to memorialize, re-visit, interact with each other and enhance this tribute for future generations.

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Family Connections

 

It is comforting to know that Selma is now in a better place. All of our mothers believed this. Having lost our mom just 3 months ago, we can share your family grief, as we can also picture them together now looking down on us.

 

Our families … The Hahns and the Sanders … grew up together in the comforts of Central Baptist Church in Kitchener. As immigrant families our lives revolved around the church community and our circle of friends, which included the Hahns.

 

I remember buying my first car … a blue Maverick … from John. I remember our family trips to Florida and the swims and adventures at Warn Mineral Springs. The attendance at weddings and funerals and all sorts of events in the church basement and the camps at Millar Lake. Road trips, hockey, university … somehow Hahns were always present.

 

But most I remember the Kaffee and Kuchen afternoons at Hahns in Cambridge, as it is now called. The huge table almost bending with all the delightful Torten that Selma had baked. One memorable visit of course stands out. I may have some details wrong, but it went something like this … John and Jakob, my dad, had just played tennis and agreed on a date for the next family visit. So after church one Sunday we all showed up … my parents and us 4 kids. We rang the doorbell and Selma answered the door. There were the usual greetings, though mixed was this brief look of astonishment. It turned out that we had come one week too soon. That happens when the menfolk got involved back then. But Selma did not miss a beat. Come in come in … I’ll just unfreeze some premade Kuchen … and the show went on.

 

The normal planned visit happened the following Sunday anyway. 40 years later, I still enjoyed going to visit the Hahns in Florida with my mom. And guess what, the table was still overflowing with Torten.

 

We were clearing out mom’s retirement residence in Stratford in February. I was about to throw out a book of quotes but thankfully opened it before doing so. It had been signed by all the Frauengruppe in the 1980’s and the dedication to my mom was written by Selma. The book now has a meaningful place on my memorial shelf.   

 

William Blake wrote:

            To see a world in a grain of sand, a heaven in a wild flower,

            To hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.

 

That was Selma. She always had that wonderful twinkle in her eye.

 

And to quote William Blake again:

            He who binds to himself a joy, does the winged life destroy,

            But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.

 

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count … It’s the life in your years !

Thank you Selma for living that time-honoured saying for all of us.

Posted by Bernie Sander
Saturday April 14, 2018 at 9:50 am
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