Officiating

  Music

  Tribute

  Eulogy

  Thanks

  Norm

I felt honoured when Shirley asked me to make a tribute at her memorial service.  Shirley was not only a good friend but also a great person.  Our friendship goes back almost 49 years, to Regina, when she asked me to baby-sit her baby daughter, Carol.  Shirley worked nights as a nurse when Norm was out-of-town with his job.  Even then Shirley struck me as a caring, sympathetic person when one night she returned home and with great anguish told me that her patient in the hospital had died.

When Shirley and Norm moved to the other side of Regina it was too far to hire me for babysitting but Shirley did not forget me.  She sent me a photo of Carol and David, who had, in the meantime, joined the family.  In the photo both children are enjoying their bath in the kitchen sink.  Those were the days before basinets and all the other conveniences available to mothers nowadays.

Years went by and I eventually settled in Calgary in 1968.  I was so surprised to meet Norm through a science teacher workshop and I was soon re-acquainted with the Neame family who by now had two more children – Roger and Bailey.

I found that through the years, Shirley’s essence hadn’t changed.  She was always caring about others–totally devoted to her husband and children as well as members of the extended family and friends–that was the essence of our friend, Shirley.  Shirley recently made a photo album for each of her 4 children and one for Norm and herself. Her last big project was to organize and host her nursing class’s 50^th anniversary.  The reunion was held just this September.

The courage that Shirley displayed right to the end is remarkable!  Eight days before her death Shirley, Norm, Carol, my husband and I came to this funeral home to make arrangements for Shirley's memorial service.  Shirley referred to it as being “bizarre” that someone like she would be making her own funeral arrangements.  At that time I assured her that it was not “bizarre” but very courageous.  I was stunned at how calm and relaxed Shirley was that day while I, in the meantime, was secretly fighting off tears!  Occasionally, Shirley would say, “But I won't be there.”  No, Shirley, you are not with us in body but yes, you are with us in spirit today.

Last Monday Shirley and I spoke together by telephone briefly.  One comment she made was that she was finished telling her family what to do to which I replied, “But Shirley, you know that they will do the right thing.”  She agreed.  She knew that her work was done.  The next day she passed away.

Now I would like to share with you a message written by Cannon Holloway of York, England.  I feel it expresses the same sentiment as does Shirley's message that is printed in today's Memorial Service folder.  It goes as follows:

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 are still.  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.  Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me.  Let my name be forever the household word that it always was.  Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.  Life means all that it ever meant.  It is the same that it ever was; there is unbroken continuity.  What is death but a negligible accident?  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.

Shirley, you are with us in spirit.  We shall cherish our memory of you and as Helen Keller once said, “What we have once enjoyed we can never lose.  All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

Good-bye and thank you, Shirley, for giving me the opportunity to express these loving thoughts.

Nellie Morf