A sad day for Musbury

We heard today that my mother's great friend from Musbury, Jeni de Meester, has died.
They first met at Queenswood when my mother went to work at her old school immediately after the war, and Jeni was a new girl being cared for in the sanatorium by the young assistant matron, Pat Dench.
When Pat and Peter first came to Musbury, Jeni and Flores were the first neighbours to come round to Laurel Cottage to welcome them. Chris and I had at least three engagement parties at their home South Cross, or so Jeni used to claim, and it would always be Jeni who remembered our wedding anniversary. She and my mother would sing, "Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters", linking arms and high-kicking at parties. They were both hopeless romantics
When Flores died so shockingly suddenly, in his early fifties, the ground fell from beneath her feet.  But later when she and John Waters found each other in their respective widowhood, it was like a love-companionship made in heaven
My Welsh great aunt Rya used to say to me, "I had several offers after Arthur died, but I would never marry again....what will I do when I get to heaven and two men come towards me, arms outstretched?"
My belief is that we all reunite in a single heavenly embrace when we get there
Our family seemed to have a psychic connection with Jeni, she adored my grandmother Molly who had a strongly psychic mind. Jeni's father was a Canon in the Church of England and she was a deeply spiritual person though not necessarily in an 'organised' way. In fact, nothing about Jeni was organised. She was very loving, a true eccentric. "Love" was the word she used most.  She loved Flores, she loved her two sons, she loved John, and I know she loved all of us
It makes me weep to think that all that is gone from the world
I have already wept for all that has gone from Musbury over recent years with the passing of so many good friend — Flores, my mother, Ray Thompson, Pamela Thompson, Pat Sant, and most recently Margaret Hargreaves — to name only a few
I sometimes feel the best party is happening 'over there', and am even quite looking forward to the day I get my invitation (although I hope not for some time yet....)

I have a little prayer card on my desk in front me. It is next to a picture of my mother and gives me strength and happiness, because I know this is what she would want to say to me:

John with Chris outside The Old Bakery in Musbury on New Year's Day 2010, and the letter he gave to us to post