Her greatest gift was her skill in raising flowers and children. She cared for so many children throughout her life; her brothers and sister, her cousins and their children, her own children and grandchildren and then the myriad of little ones she babysat. She had incredible patience with them, and they loved her in return. Every Christmas brought cards and gifts from all the other families she had cared for.

In the garden she was happiest, planning and planting and caring for all that grew. She was in her element outside amongst her flowers.

It was a struggle to convince her to move from her family home, where she had seen 44 summers come and go. But she was getting frail, and she finally agreed to move and live with Mereth. And there we at last discovered that she had hidden her final illness from us all, preferring to deal with it in silence and solitude. She was so intensely proud and independent, she didn't want anyone to know about her cancer.

She was in hospital for 10 weeks, too long from her point of view, but such a short time for us to deal with what was happening. But we all said our goodbyes, and that was a good thing.

She died alone, peacefully and in no pain, as she had wanted. Her face was beautiful, all the lines of worry smoothed out, all the pain and unhappiness of the past years washed away. This was the face she would have had, if life hadn't been so hard for her.

What an amazing woman she was, so stubborn and proud and strong, such an incredible fighter. Fiercely loyal to all her family and difficult at times, but in the end, staring at her peaceful face all I could remember was that she loved us, that we'd never doubted for a minute of our lives that we were the most important people to her. A wonderful gift, to know you are wanted and loved and cared for. I hope she knew how much she was loved in return.

Mereth's blog