Goodbye Nan

On Mothers Day 2015 we lost Graham's Nan Marj Weaire after a 6 month battle with brain cancer. We travelled to Sydney to be with her only child Graham's Dad for the funeral and to give Marj a proper send off.

This is what I want to say about Nan - as read at her funeral 

I met Marj 10 years ago. First we only spoke on the phone while Graham and I lived in Indiana in the USA. In 2006 I met Marj for the first time.

She was the first friend I had in Australia, She was also my Aussie Nan.

I feel so honoured I got to spend so much time with her, especially in the first few years I lived in Australia. We were fast friends.

We went on many outings together in those early years while Graham and I lived in Sydney

            -We went to museums and art galleries

            - We got to hear the large organ in the Sydney Town Hall played by one of the best organ players in the world.

            - We saw Andrea Reau at Sydney Olympic Park. And we got terribly lost on the way home, but we eventually found our way back to Homedale Crescent.  She was brave to let her American granddaughter drive her around at night.

            - We had many coffee’s together and explored the Sydney botanical garden together, always visiting the fruit bats.

As a new resident to Australia Marj taught me how to navigate Australian grocery stores, fruit and veg shops and butchers, all-important things I needed to learn. She was a great teacher.

Marj and I spent hours knitting and crocheting together in her living room.  Sharing stories of days gone by. She told me stories of her time growing up around Auburn, she spent many hours outside with her brothers and sisters, going to the beach and getting sunburnt. She was a beautiful red head with fair skin just like her grandson Graham.

Marj was a avid reader – She could go through one thick novel in a day all while snacking on a block on milk chocolate or eating a bag of her favorite, Twisties.

She was a devoted Mum and Grandmother. She told me about the many outings she took her grandson Graham on when he was a small boy. Trips to the zoo, train rides, and many lunches at the cafeteria across the street from the Sydney Town Hall.

I didn’t get to spend time with my grandparents as an adult and in a way I feel Marj and  I got to repeat all those beautiful outings she took her grandson on but this time with me as her adult grand daughter instead.

Marj was no stranger to more then her fair share of loss and heartache, losing her husband and then her eldest son too soon. She bravely lead her family forward, devoted to her son Craig, always there for him in good times and bad. She loved her boy and she made sure everyone knew it.

Marj had a cheeky sense of humour and in her later years became a bit of prankster. I won’t go into details because I promised her that her secrets were safe with me. But Im guessing a few people from 28 Homedale Crescent might know what im talking about.

Marj loved her Garden and went out “grub hunting” everyday. This is something her grandson enjoys doing too. She was the best great grand cat mother to our cat Kit, spoiling him on visits and feeding him his favorite moist food. He loved to sleep in her fern garden out the back.

I want to end with a story I often tell about Nan.

In 2007 Graham and I lived with Marj for a few months. I was new to Australia at the time and shocked at the amount of cockroaches that are native to Sydney.

One night while watching TV together in Marj’s living room and BIG cockroach scurried out into the center of the room. I squealed in horror.

Marj got up from her chair and said “Mary im going to teach you how to kill a cockroach”

So this is Marj’s 7 Step plan to successfully kill a cockroach.

1.     Go get the “kill spray” from the kitchen cabinet

2.     Remove your left slipper or house shoe

3.     Sneak up slowing on the cockroach, careful not to spook it.  And hover over the unsuspecting roach.

4.     Quickly with your left slipper give the roach three good smacks, and have kill spray ready.

5.     Spray the now unconscious roach with said “kill spray”

6.     Smack roach another 3 times until the desired amount of deadness has occurred.

7.     Remove the evidence and send the roach onto his new home in the Sydney sewer system.

A few nights later another cockroach appeared in the living room. Again I squealed in horror, but Marj looked at me and said. “Its your turn Mary”

I went to the kitchen and got the “kill spray” , got Marj’s left slipper then crept up on the cockroach and knelled down.  I was just about to give the roach a good smack when to my horror the cockroach spread its wings and took flight directly into my face.  I screamed in shock. I looked over at Marj who said.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention some of them can fly”

I love you Marj, thanks for being my friend and my Aussie Nan.

You’ll never be forgotten.