Mom loved people. Her natural warmth sustained so many relationships. People could tell she found them interesting, and they responded to that. Age was no barrier -- she always had friends both decades older and younger. Income and race were no barriers either. She had a deep admiration for aboriginal Canadians and the years she spent teaching at Takla Landing were among her happiest. Growing up, friends of ours who were going through a rough patch with their own parents felt able to be themselves with Fern and Ed. 2580 McBride Crescent was a "home away from home" for so many. Fern could see the good in everyone: the troublemakers, the "problem" kids. She could separate the problem from the kid, and bring out the best in a person. After moving back to Kelowna, she and Ed built up a wide circle of friends down here. She made everyone sound so interesting as she filled me in on the details of their social whirl.

Mom loved learning. She was a lifelong teacher and student. A former librarian, we grew up in a house filled with books -- and our home was often a better source of information than the school library. Mom saw everything as an opportunity to learn. She'd hang the maps from National Geographic on the kitchen wall, and have us memorise the peoples of the USSR or the countries of South America. Car trips were a chance to point out the geological features whipping past, or to practice spelling. After moving to Kelowna, she took great pleasure in attending the EULER classes and in the friends she made there. She always threw herself enthusiastically into her projects. One phone call I'd get an earful on Alexander the Great. The next time it would be the Battle of Lepanto or the geological history of the Okanagan.

Mom loved celebrating. Birthdays, Easter, Valentines', Halloween, April Fool's, Shrove Tuesday, Rabbits Day... we celebrated them all, usually with an appropriately shaped and decorated cake. On birthdays we could choose whatever we wanted to eat: mushrooms on toast for breakfast, pancakes with strawberries or shrimp cocktail for dinner -- whatever it was, she'd serve it up. She always liked to make things special: place cards, napkin rings, flower arrangements. We ate half our family dinners by candlelight. My parents' dinner parties were often raucous affairs, where the food and wine flowed freely and the guests let their hair down and had a great time. Mom especially loved Christmas: carol singing, baking, Dylan Thomas's recording of A Child's Christmas in Wales, and a new pair of pajamas for all the neighbourhood kids, delivered on Christmas Eve. She cherished the traditions passed down from her English parents, particularly the Melton Mowbray pie she baked each year for Christmas breakfast.

Mom loved trying new things. The stories I've heard of mom's past suggest she was quite a going concern. Having kids slows you down a bit, but mom was always open to new experiences. People's eating habits have changed so dramatically in the last twenty years. These days, no one thinks anything of ordering a Thai meal, or making tacos, but we were raised on meals like that... None of our friends' families had a wok in their kitchen for making stirfries, or ate coquilles St. Jacques served on individual scallop shells, or beef bourguignon cooked at the table. Raw oysters, turtle soup, escargots, octopus, frogs' legs, I'd tried them all by the time I left home. Mom was an avid listener to CBC radio (long before David took up residence on the airwaves) and was always discovering something new. "Have you heard The Crash Test Dummies?" she asked me once, "They're very good!" Just this last summer she reported enthusiastically on the Toronto SARS Benefit, and how much she'd enjoyed Mick Jagger's performance, "and that Justin Timberlake -- can he ever dance!"

Mom loved fairness. She credited her Libra nature for this quality. Equal turns. Doughnuts cut into five, so that everyone got to try each kind. Her masterstroke in her quest for fairness was the "you cut, he chooses" rule -- guaranteed to produce the most exactingly equal pieces a child's hand is capable of. As a schoolteacher, she'd seen how the less popular children suffered when exposed by those cruel contests of choosing partners or picking teams, and always had us write a Valentines' card for every kid in our class.

Mom loved her family. She and dad devoted five years to caring for our grandparents in their last years, moving from Prince George to Kelowna so they could provide full-time, live-in care when grandma and grandpa were unable to manage on their own. It was a big sacrifice, and it took a heavy physical and emotional toll on mom. Sadly, our grandparents weren't able to appreciate how much they were being given, and it was often a thankless task. But what mattered to mom was that her parents were able to keep living together, in their home of over 60 years for as long as possible, and she gave all that she was capable of giving to make it happen.

It was so important to mom that her four kids get along. At times during my childhood that seemed a bit of a long shot, but we've grown up to be very close, and mom deserves a lot of credit for that. She recently said to me, "You kids are the only worthwhile thing I've done in my life." While nothing could be further from the truth, she was an excellent mother. I've always known how much she loved us, and never felt I couldn't tell her things, (not that I always did). When I needed it, I could count on her for good advice. Once when I was agonising over some impossible choice, she said, "It doesn't matter so much which one you choose. Were you planning on getting through your life without making any mistakes?"

I've appreciated her wisdom all the more since becoming a mother myself. She was such a loving grandmother to Nova, and truly believed that she was the most remarkable baby since Ceinwen the wonder child (at least until Liam came along...)

Mom loved life. She suffered poor health for so many years, but it never dimmed her passion for living. They say that anyone can be beautiful at twenty, but by the time you're fifty you have the face you deserve. In her later years, people would often tell mom how beautiful they thought she was, or ask if she used to be a model. Telling me about these compliments she'd say something like, "They must be blind!" and laugh. They weren't blind -- she was beautiful, with her silver hair and bright blue eyes and cheekbones carving through her thinning skin. But it wasn't her features that drew these remarks, it was the beauty of what was inside shining through.

I'll miss her so much. The happiness in her voice when she realised it was me on the phone. Her laboriously decorated envelopes. Our Sunday afternoon conversations about family and politics and recipes and the novels we were reading. Little things, big things... It's always too soon when you lose someone you love. But she's done her job well, and although we'll miss her fiercely, her life's work of bonding together a loving family will support us now she has gone.

Thanks for being here with us today.