Changing the Meaning Dearest Deborah, the No1 sister, Greetings Shamwari! I have a Christmas wreath nailed to my front door, yes, an actual wreath that you and I would usually avoid and dodge like bullets and boomslangs. As children growing up in the Rhodesian Civil war, death to you and I were as common as cowboy chewing gum but in Rhodesia death was always censored, removed, hidden - the media would be silenced, the dead on the evening news would be shuttered as Mum and Dad put their hands over our eyes, a friend would be silenced with a beating from the headmaster when he spoke of Andre getting shot dead by the terrs, our dead soldiers and civilians were buried way out of town, way, way out of town. In 1985 on our return to the UK, you and I were shocked and unsettled; there were graves in St Andrews round the corner from Nan’s, a hearse and its coffin would regularly pull in from Junction Road.The dead were among us. Wreaths, hearses and graveyards - to us were all symbols of death to be avoided. When you died - I began to turn my gaze upon the funeral directors shopfront on Brighton Road as I drove past and I noticed the new spring window display of the teddy on the bench. I started to nod my head to a passing hearse as it went by and wished its passenger the best on their journey. I sat with Adelio, my 96 year old friend and listened when he spoke of his need to leave for heaven. The unfamiliar has become the familiar, the uncomfortable has become comfortable. Death is no longer something I fear because you are there. As Henry Scott-Holland’s poem says, ‘Death is nothing at all… I have only slipped away into the next room’. A Christmas wreath hangs on my front door, a wondrous wreath to invite Christ and the spirit of Christmas in, a wreath of evergreen foliage which represents everlasting life, a circle which has no beginning, which has no end and signifies eternity of God and immortality of the soul, a wondrous wreath of fruit and forest. Happy Christmas to you Shamwari. Until we meet again my friend. Lots of love and hugs your No1 sister, Anita.XXXXX