Psalm 23 (King James Version)

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:  He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I can recall Ling Games Day when I was a wee-tot.  I think she loved to play and was able to express her love for you through this.   She taught me how to play - and I've now been able to carry this down to my own boys.  Its important to keep such traditions alive - then you enjoy life that much more - by just playing !!!  Miss you !!!

I know she was smiling down on us playing this weekend!!! Big Kids and Little Kids. She loved to play!

On my birthday I remembered that even as a kid I didn't have a sweet tooth and I have never liked cakes - just a weird kid I guess.... so.... my mom solved the problem by making a cheese tray with candles to blow out!  Genius!!

So I found an old journal that I used to keep and a poem that I had written about Nell.  Thought I'd share it - it was written maybe 15+ years ago.

I can still remember the smell of her body lotion or those long nights we would sit up at night simply to laugh.  She would read me stories at bedtime and I would listen to her snores she uttered through the hours.  Wrapping Christmas gifts that seemed endless at the time using scraps fromt he previous year even if they were too small.  All these memories and more I can recall don't compare to the admiration I have of her.  When i was a young child I would feel continuously protected as long as her presence was around me.  To us both we were the bestest of friends referring to each other as soul mates and not gramma and grandaughter.  She taught me how to knit years ago but first I had to learn the rule of balls on the ends of slippers.  She would suck on Mento's and sing songs int he car.  Playing games she made our family so joyful during those times.  When her true love passed I'd watch her cry and note how she never looked at his pictures.  Hanging pictures on her wall wasn't a tradition among her home, but simply drawings her grandchildren actually drew with crayons.  Me bestest friend she continued to remain.  Through love lost and love gone we'd stay like that forever.  Cuddled within her large bed her covers filled with flowers you actually thought you could smell.  The heating blanket kept on, to warm our toes with our laughter echoing throughout the halls.

Nell was also pretty creative especially with her cooking.  One year she decided to follow a diet plan in a cook book but her intuitive way of substituting ingredients was amazing.  She actually made buttermilk doughnuts.  Well not knowing what buttermilk was she added half butter and half milk..... they looked kind of weird more like pancakes but tasted alright.  I think her signature recipe was her homemade toffee apples with the great hunks of lumber for sticks that she grabbed from the kindling box. 

Among her other specialties were cabin oats - lumps included; pioneer meatloaf - anything with that much ketchup and brown sugar has got to be good, slow cooker stew - it's all in the pot you know but her dumplings really were a treat. ( still haven't quite mastered how she made them out of barely anything) (Wonder who scooped that pot?  She bought it for twenty five cents at a rummage sale).

 No one went hungry and everyone was welcome and there was always lively dinner conversation. 

My favourite was cake in a tin with carnation milk and we teased her about it incessantly.  She'd say we were never much for cooking  better to have pie and mash with green gravy. 

 Good nosh!

When we were very small my mom looked after other children as well as foster kids who lived with us.  At one point she had so many kids she decided it was easier to keep track of us if we were in pairs.  So where ever we went we went in twos..... each pair had matching swimming caps so it was easier to keep track of us in the water.

We used to walk or ride our bikes down to Kew Beach from our house in East York.  Getting us there was one thing but how did she ever get a bunch of tired cranky kids to walk home after a day in the sun and the sand at the end of the day.  She must have looked like the Pied Piper.

During the summers we used to frequent the Elora library once a week to get our VHS movies to watch. We would keep them for a week and then return them after watching all 10 we may have taken out. We would even take out a book.  Yet for some reason we could never finish the book, as we would read in her bed the first few pages and then one of us would fall asleep.  How many people can say they got to spend even sleeping hours with their cool grandma.  Every other weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I would curl up in her bed where my grandfather used to sleep - she let me sleep in his spot. I can't tell you how comforting it is to have the protection of your grandmother beside you while you sleep.  I'm so thankful I got to experience that.

Who couldn't forget the song elvira by 'the oak ridge boys'.  Being played on her old stereo over and over.  I used to love the song and would want to play it over and over.  Others got sick of it - but nell would say "go on then - play it again".  She knew how to have fun and keep the music playing !

So while at the gym trying to work off a head-ache (which helps sometimes - but not this day) I remembered a fleeting memory.

If you ever had a headache Nell used to say 'rub the bumbs on your head and it will go away'.  Like the usual doctor she was she believed that when you had a head-ache bumps would pop up on your head and all you had to do was massage them.  So wasn't I in the gym on the elpitical massaging the bumps on my head.

Another one of her home rememdies (a total classic one) was 'Vick's down your throat'.  She had a sore throat one weekend - a weekend I wasn't there to be with her - and when I came up the next weekend she spoke of this genius remedy she had come up with.   She said she took some Vick's vapor rub and put it on her throat like the instructions said to do on the bottle.  I asked if she felt better and she said yes but it tasted funny.  With alot of laughter and knowing what she had done I asked her if she had put it in her mouth in her throat - she said yes that she had followed the instructions.  So she swallowed it instead of putting it on her skin on the OUTSIDE of her throat.  I began to lecture her that she could have poisoned herself as it clearly states on the bottle 'DO NO INGEST' and if you do to go to the nearest emergency room.  She claimed that she didn't get to read that far ha ha!!!  

In those moments you wondered if she was playing it up and pretending to be not so smart or if she was really that idiotic to do something like that.  

So even when she was laying in bed in her last months of life - when I went to see her she would grin in a sheepish way and ask if I had any Vicks to put down her throat !

Love those memories!

While doing my nails this week Nell came into my mind.  She always would teach me how to properly do my nails.  What was most important before you put your polish on was to make sure your 'moon's' were showing (not your butt crack but the crescent of a moon in your nail).  So you would have to push your cuticles back in order to have them show.  

Prior to her passing I called her up and told her that I was going to paint her nails.  I let her know that I was taking requests for nail colours.   She said that she wanted me to pick any colour I would like - as she said I had good taste ha ha!!!   So I chose HOT PINK !!!   Boy did we have a laugh about the hot pink toe nails popping up from under the covers.   Although such a simple thing to do someones nails - to me it was so nice to do something like that for her at the end of her life, as this was something that she had taught me and such an act of love.   

I miss her !

Oh how she hated the cold and snow so she made sure not to be here for those months  when the weather was at it's worst. Instead she traveled to the corners of the globe.

She danced the flaminco in South America marched with the penquins in Antartica -  she visited friends in Australia.  She said there were a lot of Chinese people in China.  She stood in awe at the Vatican, the beauty of the Greek Islands and even rode a camel beside the Pyramids. She loved Arizona and visited the battle sites of the American Civil War.  There isn't a state in the US she hadn't visited particularly if they had casinos – she was one crazy casino granny ----- who could resist a five dollar bus ride and a free dinner.

There's only one thing she enjoyed more than traveling or maybe it was a very close tie and that was dancing.  When we were kids she would move the furniture out of the way and turn up the stereo so that we could dance in the kitchen.  We learned the fox trot, the quick step, the waltz and to jive.   She was fortunate to have a like minded dance partner in Irene Kingston and they danced together for more than 50 years and were blessed by the friendship they shared for all of their days. 

How many photographs do we have of the two of them wearing paper Christmas hats dancing together.

As most of you know my uncle married a Romani gypsy so you know that there is gypsy blood in our family but there certainly must have been gypsies in our blood line long before that because my mother was a gypsy through and through.  She couldn't stay in one place much longer than a day at a time – a week at most. 

As a young couple come payday - my mom and dad would meet with a group of friends – they would each put the name of a place on a piece of paper and drop it in hat  - picking one out determined where they should spend the weekend….. and off they would go on the motor bikes…. 

 that's pretty much how she lived…. Flying by the seat of her pants

One of my favourite images is of her sitting on the back of a motorcycle playing her harmonica – (my mother …. a motor cycle mamma!!)  She told stories of sleeping in farmers fields and hay stacks. A great adventure!!! It was on one of these forays into Europe she met her first Canadians.  You know she said …. I thought Canadians had big feet so that they could walk on the snow!....

That was my mom - like no other!!!!

So when you had a birthday before blowing out your candles - Nell would say "make sure its a good one now" (meaning you better wish for something grand). To this day - with all my birthday cake candles - I blow them out with a grand wish in mind !   I now have 2 babies because of this ritual she taught me - in wishing big.

I remember how much Nell used to love to walk - she would have rathered we walk for miles on end then take a car, bus, or train. In Fergus (for fun) we used to walk from one end of the country line to the other and back again. We would talk, laugh and gather wild flowers to tie together and make jewellry with.  It didn't matter if it was raining or snowing - you would walk !

When she took me to England we had gotten off at the wrong stop - about 3 stops early to be exact.  And instead of getting back on the tube she said we could walk.  It was during those random moments that you knew you were going to arrive at the end of them with some fascinating stories. So while walking to get to our correct destination we were nearly run off the road (because it was a hwy), got in trouble by the police (as you weren't suppose to walk on this road/hwy), and found a beaten up homeless woman lying on the curb.  We were able to have police and an ambulance come to help her (same police that told us off) and hung out with the homeless lady, paramedics and police officers for an hour in a nearby park, because that was just the thing to do that afternoon.  Its funny when you tell these stories as you don't think that they could be true - but having lived through many of them with her, I can say in all honesty, they are most definetly true !

One thing you might not know about my mom  is that she  was a great thinker…. And we all learned to run when she turned to you and said …… I was just thinking ….. or I've got an idea ……. Sometimes you just didn't get out of the way fast enough ….. some of her ideas included things like blueberry farming...... or raising rabbits – because of course they multiply….. remember Thumper…..and chicken jim coats ...... yes she had some ideas.

In her own words she said she had a life second to none.  She recently told me that in the middle of the night when she was very ill that my dad stood before her with open arms and said “come on over then”….. this is something he would say when she was cold or if he wanted to make up and he would take her in his arms.  I know that there's where she is now wrapped in his arms and there's going to be a party because I'm sure she's got an idea or two.

Nell was a second mum to me who was someone that was a safe haven in my life.  I'd like to think that my humour was like hers as well as my dancing skills. - since she was the one that showed me how to laugh really hard and to bust a move just when you felt like it.  She seemed to have a way of understanding how to speak right to me when it mattered most.  One of the last things she told me was - "I like you just the way you are".  I miss her so !   I will cherish her in my heart always - until I see her again - and we can laugh and dance together in paradise !

What a great time we had watching the African Queen - OOOOOH Mr. Orner!! Mr. Orner!!  




Ascension

And if I go, while you're still here.... Know that I live on, Vibrating to a different measure - behind a thin veil you cannot see through.....you will not see me, I wait for the time when we can soar together again - both aware of each other.  Until then, live your life to its fullest.

And when you need me Just whisper my name in your heart, I will be there.

love always, Christine

OBITUARY

Ellen Doreen Ling

11 March, 1931 – 2 May, 2013

Markey-Dermody Funeral Home

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