90-year-old’s beautiful birthday speech reflecting on her life
Rose Osborne, 67, was a registered nurse for 45 years before retiring to become a personal historian, owner and creator of Write My Journey, a life story writing service that turns memories into a beautiful hardcover book.
How would you feel if you could communicate with family and future generations and guide them with your wisdom whether you are around or not? The gift of your wisdom and values may be the inspiration they need at a particular moment.
This gift is priceless and isn’t out of reach for anyone. A Personal Letter of Life Celebration or an Ethical Will can achieve this level of communication for you. It is suitable for use at all rite-of-passage events such as significant birthdays, anniversaries or read as a eulogy. It can also be included in your estate planning and final Will to be opened when the time is right.
May was a special client of Write My Journey and asked for a Personal Letter of Life Celebration to be read at her birthday celebration. She wanted to speak to each and every person and for them to know a little about her personal life moments. After the loss of her husband and the closing down of the family home, she became very reflective. She wanted some messages carried forward in the family that could help the young ones and their children. The letter was to be read by a great granddaughter, and every guest given a copy in a beautiful presentation box as a keepsake.
A Personal Letter of Life Celebration is different to a biography or memoirs which document your life journey, events and experiences. A Personal Letter will reflect on your core personal values, feelings and lessons learnt. It can open those challenges that perhaps changed your life and impacted on the family, those moments when you wished you had shared more of your vision and dreams or those lessons hard learnt that could be useful to a young family member.
There is no right or wrong way to write such a letter only that it should feel as if you are talking from your heart to the reader’s heart. Write from the ‘I’ perspective and address your family members directly. They will be delighted and happy that you have considered their needs and life journey.
An excerpt from May’s Personal Letter of Life Celebration
This is my 90th year and I am told, I am going to have a birthday party. I don’t mind. I love seeing the family together and there are so many of you these days. I cannot believe all of these lives come from Pat and me.
Pat was the love of my life. He died last year and we had been married 70 years. Not a day went by in all that time, when I did not think how lucky I was riding my bike home with my friend Ruth. Ruth and I were barely 18 years of age and had finished our shift on the railway; we weren’t eager to ride the three miles to our homes too quickly as we were enjoying a lively chat. Whether it was by fate or design I don’t know, but my life changed the moment Pat whistled me and I stopped to check him out.
Ruth and I were childhood friends and we were inseparable. We both worked on the Diesel that travelled to Broken Hill serving meals. Regardless of the weather, we met at 5 am on the corner and rode our bikes to the Railway Station. One day on the way home, we met our life partners, two Air Force boys. They were Sydney boys and were in the process of being discharged after the war. The discharge unit was based outside of town at the local airport. The whistle Pat sent through the early evening summer air sounded magical. The boys doubled us home and it was love for both Ruth and I. I married Pat and Ruth married Max.
Ruth and I are now widows and we both reside in the same aged care facility in the town we have lived in our whole lives. Friends are very important to me and strangely enough, I am being reunited with many old friends in my aged care home, and am absolutely cherishing their kindness and friendship. I am meeting people second time around and it is feels like a different relationship that has blossomed from an old pot left on the stove but never discarded.
Not always through my long life did I have friends close at hand, but that happens when you have eight children.
My children are everything to me and I love you all dearly. I devoted my married life to giving you the family values that are so important to me. Pat and I were so very poor after the War but so very rich in many other ways. The family is the heart and soul of everyone and if that is right, then all will be well.
The centre of my big family when you were growing up was the kitchen where I cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as all the cakes, jams and pickles that were eaten before they could get cold. The kitchen is a wonderful place to get everyone involved and interacting even if there had been a little spat or two between people.
I remember when the Christmas dining extended through two rooms and the laughter and chatting was just marvellous. I always insisted on my family sitting at the table to eat so we could talk and listen to each other. Communication is a gift in a family and if there is just one thing I would like you to promise me, it is that you will always come together and enjoy each other’s company and support – even after I am gone.
Support is so important within families. It needs to be unconditional and filled with love and not questions and gossip. Trust comes from within and is associated with understanding and honesty. If you are honest even if things aren’t as they should be, people will respect and support you.
If there was one thing I would say to the community, it is to support young mothers. Being a mother is a hard physical job and thankless at times. When I was a young mother, I remember how everyone thought I could cope when I wasn’t feeling that way at all. The isolation and the expectation that all was well were heavy crosses to bear. Mothers need to speak up and tell those close to them how to help, how they are feeling and what is not working well.
I am just an ordinary person who has been blessed with such a wonderful family. I love the way you all spoil me and I wish I could have given you more when you were children. I gave you what I could and a stable family home to grow up in. Now it is your turn to provide those things to your children, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and let them enrich your life as you have enriched mine.
Things are harder for the young ones these days. They have more than we had – more temptations, more challenges, more elusive dreams and confusing realities. Love is a very rich emotion and needs to have its flood gates open to flow and irrigate so the soil stays fertile.
“A family is a circle of strength of love and with every new addition; the family circle grows and becomes stronger.”
Author Unknown
Rose has a special offer for Over60 readers. The first 20 applicants will receive their Personal Letter of Life Celebration to the value of 1000 words for $500 (instead of $800). Please mention Over60 when getting in touch.
To find more information about writing a Personal Letter of Life Celebration, visit Write My Journey here.
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