Memories of My Daughter

My blog post A Mother's Prayer was written some time ago and today I have been cleaning up my office. 

Amongst some old papers, I found some lovely photos of my daughter, Annette, and decided to share them with you. Like all children, she changed to look at and yet remained the same through the years.

When she was a young girl of seven or eight, her grandmother lived in Kalgoorlie and Annette would go to stay with her during some of the school holidays.

One of her father's cousins was a Hostess on the Prospector train, so she was not travelling alone - although I don't think we would bung her on a train today, to travel 600km away to a gold mining town, almost by herself.  It is true - things were different and much safer thirty five years ago.

Warren, Colin and I took her to the train and saw her off. Colin took this photo of the three of us.

When she was 16, she ran away from home as so many young teenage girls do - and she soon was married to Alistair and mother to Jade and Robert. 

We loved her greatly but she wanted to live her own life, in her own way.

A few months before we lost her, she came to spend Mother's Day with us, at Stoneville, along with her husband, children and brothers and my family.  It was a wonderful day - full of love and laughter with many hugs and stories.

My beautiful Annette - you are ever my daughter.