Remembering you today and every day Mum and wishing you were still here xxx
Maria Farnan was born on March 8th, 1935 in Bendigo, Victoria and passed away peacefully on March 5th, 2015 at Glengarry hospital, just a few days before her 80th birthday.
As we remember Maria, Mum, Grandma; there are many things that come to our minds, but her non-judgmental interest in people and her genuine concern for them is what truly made an impression on everyone she met. She influenced people by her example and her way of being. Maria made people feel they mattered. She lived her values every day. She was a wonderful wife, mother and grandmother. We will remember her forever.
Tributes
Leave a tributeRemembering you today and every day Mum and wishing you were still here xxx
Her ability to put everything that she was doing and thinking to the side and just provide support and love was amazing and i have never seen anyone do that so completely and without prejudice. We can aspire to be like that and I hope i have treated my kids like that and that they will pass it on to their kids, keeping mum's legacy alive forever.
My thanks to all who have left tributes.
Maria was vivacious & enthusiastic, inspiring interest in learning, especially drama, poetry & the French language. It was her love of learning that inspired me to become a passionate teacher of French & English.
She fitted in with life in that small country town - catching the school bus once each week with me, getting off the bus at the corner of our farm, walking up the gravel road in her high heels, giving me a piano lesson, eating dinner with our family & then being driven home by my mother.
Maria & I kept up a lifelong friendship. Every Christmas she would send a bulletin of family news & a photo of her growing family - most years, for 10 years, a new baby would appear on the Christmas photo!
Many students of those first two years of Robinvale High School remember, with affection & gratitude, Maria & the other teachers who gave so generously of their talents & time to enrich the lives of children who had previously had little hope & expectation of being able to have a secondary education.
Rest in peace, my dear friend.
She supported me whatever choices I made. I can't believe Mum is gone. She lives on in the amazing family I'm so proud to be part of.
You subsequently welcomed Jenny and me as members of your family too. That will always be special to us. Sorry to have missed your birthday anniversary. Love Steve and Jenny xx
Mum was simply there for us. She was kind - not just to our family, but to whoever needed her kindness at any given time. She welcomed all our friends into the house. I don't remember arguing with her. She didn't put pressure on us to live in a particular place, or do a particular type of study, or choose a particular type of career, or to be with a particular type of person, or be a particular type of parent. She just showed us what it meant to be a good person and how to have a positive impact on people, with the way she thought and lived and then set us free in the world to live our own version of that.
I couldn't have asked for a better Mum and I am grateful for every year she gave me. I will try to bring a little bit of her spirit each day to my kids, Gus and Emma, who won't remember the amazing person she was.
She was my Aunt, who became my stand-in WA mum and I am blessed that I was accepted as part of the Perth family. She was kind, generous, loving, accepting, non-judgemental, spiritual, intelligent and the oracle of everything about children.
Emma and Jake were lucky to have Maria as their substItute Grandma, she was so generous with her time for them. I will miss our chats. Thank you for being there.
Leave a Tribute
Remembering you today and every day Mum and wishing you were still here xxx
Her ability to put everything that she was doing and thinking to the side and just provide support and love was amazing and i have never seen anyone do that so completely and without prejudice. We can aspire to be like that and I hope i have treated my kids like that and that they will pass it on to their kids, keeping mum's legacy alive forever.
My thanks to all who have left tributes.
Maria the Midwife
There are not many women who can say their mother in law delivered their child!
With three weeks to go before my due date, I was relaxing in Binningup with John and Maria after finishing work. My labour came on with little notice and was all over very quickly.
Luckily for me, Maria's experience came to the fore. I couldn't have asked for a more calming, loving and knowledgeable lady by my side (so to speak!).
Maria was in control the whole time and even carried Benjamin out to the waiting ambulance and, later, swiftly took him back for another cuddle in the hospital.
I cannot repay what Maria did in that very short hour in August 1998 but I will always love her and thank her for bringing Ben safely into our world.
Mel Farnan