Page 2 - Gwen Landsberry - Eulogies

A Letter to Nana

from Samantha Bowers
(granddaughter)

So, I teach high school English these days, and we have this practice at
my school where students write gratitude letters to teachers at intervals
throughout the year. I thought on this, a celebration of Nana’s life, I’d
give it a try. So Nana, here is my gratitude letter to you.

Dear Nana,
This is just a little note to tell you how much you mean to me and to my
siblings.

Thank you for looking after us when we were little – even when Michael
climbed buck naked over the neighbour’s fence.

Thank you for keeping so many awesome toys on hand, always. Your
back room was a treasure trove and that toy – Fisher Price, maybe? –
shaped like a tree was a particular favourite.

Thank you for taking us on outings – all us grandchildren, and just you,
wrangling us on the bus, train and through the city. It’s only now, having
children of my own, that I realise what a massive and exhausting
undertaking that would have been. I think our annual trips to Disney on
Ice were my favourites.

Thank you for the multigrain peanut butter sandwiches you
meticulously toted with you on said outings – in those envelope tuck
style plastic sandwich bags. Cost effective and healthy. Double win.
Thank you for the love you had for all of us, the jokes and laughter you
were always ready with. The cold chicken you put out when we dropped
by, the creepy-ass dressmaker’s mannequin that fuelled my fears but
also my imagination, the key in the flower boxes, the location of which
felt like secret magical knowledge, the snoring overnight that reminded
us you were there (really reminded us you were there, when we shared
a room in Europe), the endless supply of homemade Anzac bikkies and
sparkling apple juice, the reliably never changing Christmas decorations
including the plastic baby Jesus in the fake hay in your nativity scene,
which always meant Christmas had truly come.

Thank you for the fennel in your garden, the butter menthols in your
handbag.
Thank you for cultivating my very mature predilection for Cadbury’s
Furry Friends – those flat chocolates with native animals on the packet.
To this day I feel like every respectable pantry needs a stash of them.