Emma Frankford
Emma Frankford. Photo by Cameron Ainsworth-Vincze.
Emma Passed away last year from complications due to colon cancer.
Emma was a person who loved people and wanted to find a way for them to come together with art as a theme.
She worked as waitress and had many friends. For a time she lived in Kensington Market.
Emma Frankford is Gone But Not Forgotten.
http://www.fims.uwo.ca/olr/apr0506/DealingWithDeath.html
Always in the Thoughts of Those Who Loved Her
Emma was born June 26th 1975, and she died on 20th April 2006. Those 30 years were a gift of life to her and to her family, Mother, Edwina (me), Father Robert, and her two sisters, Rachael and Liz. We all loved her and her sweet personality. She was beautiful and had a fun sense of humour, with a lovely smile and engaging laugh,( which I can still hear now when I think about it.) She had a way of looking at you sideways with a smile when she wanted to make sure you were thinking the same thing as she was, especially if something was amusing. She loved us all and especially her nephews and nieces, Malcolm, Lila, Sebastian and Olivia. She said she wanted children of her own and when given her prognosis at the hospital, she was more upset about the fact she would not have children, than the devastating likelihood she would lose her life to this terrible disease.
Emma took on this illness as a challenge. In spite of her weakening state, she remained determined to survive and to work in her future for the health and wellbeing for others with cancer. She said that would be her life's work. I can still see the determination in her face when she said this. That was her way, whenever she heard of anything that was unfair in this world, she got upset and vowed to do something about it or she definitely would not tolerate it. When she went to the Student School near Broadview after leaving Jarvis, she became a top student, and got a prize for being the best in her year. I was so proud of her. I remember meeting her for a dimsum lunch every Tuesday and we would go over her school assignments. One was about how the female side of mankind has been neglected in the last several centuries of history and how this has lead to most of the problems in the world, how we need to readjust this again. At the time I wasn't sure about this but since then I myself have discovered that this is right.
She also wrote about my mother Muriel, and how much she admired and loved her. My mother died one month before Emma, also of cancer, breast cancer, Emma had colon cancer. I sometimes think that Mum died then so she could get ready for Emma when she died and be there to help her with the transition;. and also to join Reg, her husband who had died of a heart attack one month before her in February. All three died within 2 months of each other in 2006. When I went to a memorial service in England for my mum and dad, one year later, I went to see a psychic and she told me that Emma, Muriel and Reg were together sitting in a garden with birds singing, similar to how they used to do every summer when Emma visited England.
No wonder Emma loved her grandmother, she admired strong women and my mother, Muriel was one of those. Sje had a happy disposition and did a lot of fundraising for those in need. She held, what she called "coffee mornings", she would get up at 4 oclock in the morning and do lots of baking, making bread, cakes, pies, scones. Then neighbours and friends would come for coffee, and stay for a lunch of homemade soup with fresh homemade bread followed by homemade plum crumble, made from plums picked in her garden. There was a bring and buy, and she would collect the money made and give it to whichever charity was in need. A lot of people would come, and have a wonderful time sitting in the kitchen or the garden, enjoying each other's company and the food she had prepared. My mother was very sociable and that's another thing that Emma liked about her, as did my other daughters Rachael and Liz. They loved to go to England and be with their grandmother I myself started to think that my mother had become very spiritual as she got older. In a way she reminded me of the Dalai Lama, always smiling and happy and also very selfless. She had energy for anything and loved the sun. Whenever the sun came out she would tip her head up and enjoy it (or should I say worship it!) Maybe that had something to do with her demeanor .
One other assigment Emma did at High School was a story she wrote about her grandfather, my father. He was a soldier in the 2nd world war and died in France in 1940. He was only 22 years old. Emma got me to tell her about it, then wrote a story about him, and about me going to visit his grave for the first time when I was 50.(50 years after his death.) Afterwards she went to visit his grave also.
One thing I want to say which is on my mind constantly. I miss you terribly Emma and I want to make a lovely memorial worthy of you, I will give it to those who knew you and they will keep it and pass it on forever, so everyone will know how beautiful you are.. I left you and your sisters with your father when our marriage broke up. You were very young, still a baby, I didn't want you not have your father around when you were growing up (like what happened it me). But afterwards I wished I hadn't left you then. Maybe things would have worked out differently if I had kept my daughters with me. At the time it seemed like the only decision. I will never forgive myself for leaving you as children. I worry about how you must have been neglected at such a vulnerable age.
My mother left me also when her husband died, she needed to persue a career to support herself in life, so she left me with her mother. I left you with your father while I also needed to find a way to support myself, so history repeats itself and it is so sad. The children that you wanted so much will not be born and that is so sad also, but the love is still there Emma, stronger than ever, just as it was with my mother for me who desperately wanted to see me before she died. You were so ill at the time I could not leave the country to go and see her. I am sorry I left you when you were young, and I am sorry I didn't go and see Mum before she died, two things in life which I regret and wish I could have changed; but I love you both still even more than when you were alive, if that is possible. As long as you are still in my mind I know you are still there ...somewhere, not too far away, in the same way I have felt Edward, my father's presence somehow, influencing and guiding my life .
On my father's grave it said "Always in the Hearts of those who loved him" I didn't know him because he died before I was born but I do think about him and how he has continued to influence our lives just by the fact that he died at a young age in a war. I thought of him yesterday which was Rememberance Day 2008 and I do each year on Rememberance Day, November 11th when everyone pays tribute to the soldiers who died in wars and changed the lives of their families for ever I have always felt his love and protection and hope that Edward is also sitting with you sometimes Emma, together with Muriel and Reg in the garden with the birds singing and you are all at peace and happy.
One day the human race will allow it's feminine side to regain it's strength and there will no more wars to wreck havock on families and their histories.
