Ann Marie MacLean

East Bay/Sydney

With much joy for a life well lived, we announce the peaceful passing of our sister on Tuesday, April 29, 2008.

Ann was born in Sydney, N.S. in 1943, the daughter of the late John J. and Mary Gertrude MacLean.

A graduate of Riverview High School, she attended Xavier Jr. College and later worked with the Royal Bank. In 1966, she began a 23-year career as a flight attendant with Eastern Airlines in the United States. Following training in Miami she flew out of Chicago, New York and Boston. Her career took her across the U.S.A and the Caribbean. For 18 years her home base was Boston because it allowed easy access back home to family and friends on her beloved Cape Breton Island.

In 1989, she took early retirement from the airline and joined her brother Charles at the Markland Resort in Dingwall, northern Cape Breton. There her warmth and concern for others gained her a following among the travelling public. Going the extra mile was part of her character. She was genuinely interested in people and they responded with love and affection. Many of her lifelong friends came from the staff and guests of this little inn at the top of the island.

Ann lived life to the fullest and even though she travelled the world her happiest days were spent at the bungalow in Island View hosting a big ‘Scoff’ for family and friends.

Ann is survived by siblings; Allan (Mae) MacLean, Island View, Clare (Donnie) Sasco, Sydney, Ed (Lois Beaton) MacLean, Halifax, Charles (Daryl) MacLean, Dingwall, and Joan (Peter) Carson, Calgary. Also by Rannie Gillis, partner and travel companion; and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family would like to give a special thanks to friend and caregiver Dorothy Novak, the VON, and the Palliative Care Unit at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital.

There was no visitation by request. A memorial service was held Friday, May 02, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. in St, Mary’s Church, East Bay. Reception followed at Sydney Forks Recreation Centre.

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What is Death?

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away

into the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other,

that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.

Speak to me in the easy way

which you always used.

Put no difference in your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity

or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes

we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me,

pray for me.

Let my name be ever the

household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without affect,

without the trace of a

shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same that it ever was.

There is absolutely unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,

for an interval,

somewhere very near,

just around the corner.

All is well.

Scott Holland 1847-1918

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