#541, Jillianne Bridget GIBBS

Educated at St Stephens College, Broadstairs, Kent and spent a year in France studying French and French History of Art and Marlborough Gate Secretarial College. Worked two years for James Cubitt and partners before returning to Devon to work with ESN children. Also studied Social Sciences in Bristol.

Service of celebration in 9 facets at St.Lukes, Hodnet 26 2 1994. 1st wife to Martin and 2nd wife to Anthony.

Tribute by Anthony at her funeral on 28th January 1994

"Jillianne Bridget, the latter after her Aunt, Miss Bridget Gibbs, who lost her life only a few weeks ago while on a walking tour abroad, were the two charming names given to the little daughter of Lieut. and Mrs Denis Gibbs when she was christened at St. John the Baptist Church, Aldenham on Sunday August 18th". Thus spoke the Hertfordshire Advertiser in 1935. [Jill was baptised by her uncle, Reginald Gibbs,vicar of Aldenham]

Jill was born on 11th July and her baby album in which I found this cutting gives almost prophetic insight into the nature and being of that noble and compassionate personality which has brought us together today. The infinite care and adoration with which the album was assembled by Jill's mother is our first clue. Jill was brought up from the very start in an atmosphere where love and love alone dominated. But the mundane was not omitted - the album records that she was first bathed by her mother on July 30th. It seems this was a somewhat less than satisfactory event because the following entry tells us that Nanny resigned two days later.

At a year she is recorded as "talks all day in her own language" (and I suspect that the more earthly amongst us may feel that that continued into later life). Other entries introduce her love of animals, her passion for flowers growing in the garden and her very early spiritual nature. At 2 years 2 months the record tells us "her sister Margaret was born - Jill loved her immediately". All these good characteristics developed in Jill through school where she also showed the more usual leadership and sports skills in addition to aptitude for drama and writing. She might have chosen a career in either of these but she knew she had more to offer the world through people and she determined to include children as part of that gift. Jill's four children are all here today and I want you to know that their contribution to their mother's welfare over her last few weeks was beyond measure.

For me (and maybe for others too), Jill's greatest gift was that she taught me to know my feelings, to understand my feelings and to express those feelings. Always she knew that we had to learn to know ourselves before we could know others. Jill taught this lesson (though I may not yet have learned it completely) by example rather than by instruction and, as one who has been a pretty dedicated member of the stiff upper lip brigade, I would not have been able to talk to you today as I am now without her prior help.

I have cried buckets since Jill died but I feel no shame. I may not have finished crying yet but they are good tears because they are tears that Jill unlocked for me. Those tears are a testament to Jill's touch and if she is watching I know she will be pleased. She had so many qualities that were I to attempt to list them all I would quickly bore you. But please let me mention a few and I shall be surprised if there are not at least one or two which ring a familiar bell with each of you.

Jill ruled by love, not by authority

She always looked for and usually found good in every situation

She always made time to stop and to listen

A seeker seldom went away without wise counsel

But do not be deluded by such eulogistic commendation - she enquired deeply, built robust convictions and was a formidable debating adversary. Throughout, however, ran a bubbly stream of sympathy and a great understanding of human frailties.

Nobody knows this and feels it more keenly than my 3 sons and me. She quietly and affectionately oversaw our integration into the extended family which has given us such joy and which is now my salvation.

She took my 3 redundancies as mere molehills of life and when we lost nearly everything at the beginning of the recession, she saw it as no more than a style in the fence of experience. I know not what I did to deserve 20 years of her infinite love and grace!

But still I have to wrestle with the question as to why such a good life as hers should be so roughly curtailed. I can only think she was needed somewhere else more than she was needed here, In the vernacular, I think Jill got a promotion. She knew through her vision at Burswood that she would be asked to make this sacrifice and in a sense she looked forward to it. She had no fear of the future - she was just scared of the transition in which her increasingly troublesome body had to be discarded. She bore that pain and fright with amazing fortitude; she suffered almost silently and died with the greatest dignity.

Difficult though it is for us all to part with a love that...

...we have enjoyed so much...

...that has touched so many...

...and from which we have benefited so greatly...We have to learn to let go.

Letters about Jill - and there have been many - always talk of her wisdom, her inner strength, her outer calm and her willingness to listen. From reading them I know she touched many, many lives and touched them tenderly. One such letter seemed to say it all so succinctly that I want to read it to you.

Dearest, dearest Jill,

Your nice little letter card has just arrived, though you actually wrote it just after Margy's visit. You were pretty ill then but now I understand you are much worse. Dear Jill, I'm so sorry. And that is such an understatement I hardly dare say it - but there are no words for such big things. Only prayers.

I think it was Ella Fitzgerald who said, "Life's a party which we join after its already begun and leave before it's over". Well, you are one of the loveliest, warmest, most precious guests at this party and it aint at all fair that you should leave it before the rest of us because it won't be the same without you. But, my word, I'm glad you came. Lots and lots and lots of love....

She loved that letter and showed it to all of us with great pride the day before she died.

Jill's greatest, greatest pleasure was the time she spent with close friends and kindred spirits on the Island of Iona. Those visits were a welcome source of sanctuary, renewal and inspiration. Whilst there she wrote a little meditation which I want to read to you. I have called it LET GO and so great is my admiration for its writer that I can think of no better conclusion to this, my tribute, than Jill's own words and thoughts.

Meditation: LET GO

Find your own space;

A rock somewhere, high up, facing the sea.

Feel it's rough firmness and warmth from the sun,

See the wild flowers nestling in grass and crevice.

Listen to the bleating lambs below you

And the sound of seabirds around you.

Let your heart move with the wind and rhythm of the sea,

Know, deep within, that it is good.

Feel the springy turf beneath your feet,

Sense, deep down, the Iona heartbeat.

Draw on her green earth energy; up, up

Through the earth, through the soles of your feet,

Towards your heart let it flow;

Slowly - penetratingly.

Lift up your eyes to the singing skylark

And feel the warm sunshine on your face.

Become aware of infinity.

Draw down those golden rays; down through your head

To centre in the heart,

Slowly, penetratingly feel the power as it moves.

When gold meets green within the heart

They merge to blues of changing hues,

Like sky reflecting in the ocean.

Move with the blue waters of your heart;

Expand - heal - transform.

Give away a gift of love and let go.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One of the tributes at Jill's service of 9 facets was written and delivered by Humphrey Cobbold

"Twenty years as one of Jill's extended brood has left me with many memories.  Memories of great hospitality and warmth: of a constant welcome for my friends at the legendary Vineyard logging weekends: and a place that always offered me a haven from the all too brisk pace of the World of business that is a million miles from that magical valley.

To me Jill will, perhaps above all else, be someone who encouraged those who dared to be different.  She instinctively, and her feelings were usually instinctive, knew that we should not be constrained by the accepted norms of society.  She was passionate in her belief that individuals should be free from prejudice to chart their course through life.

So it was, that when Nicola and I spoke with her about the problems our marriage raised for Nicola's love of Judaism and - topically - our children's upbringing, she never hesitated in her encouragement that we would be able to find a way through them.

The first reading I have chosen is, in a sense, a tribute to the encouragement Jill offered us then and describes a sentiment to which I think Jill would have ascribed.  It is a short passage from the writings of Moses Mendelssohn a famous Jewish philosopher who triad to combine his Judaism with a modern cultural approach:

"As for myself, I am content with the conviction that God's eyes are forever upon me, and his providence and justice will follow me into the future life as it has protected me in this, and that my true happiness consists in the development of the powers of my soul.  It is such felicity that awaits me in the life to come.  More I do not need to know."

We can all wonder at length why Jill was able to be so open to ideas, opinions and points of view.  Why she was able to see so much good in Christianity, in Judaism or in spiritualism in general.  The truth, I think, is that Jill was possessed of an enviable sense of faith in life and a God that knew few boundaries or ecumenical strictures.

The second and last brief reading I have chosen encourages us all to trust and believe that there is a path to the right way.  Though Christian in origin it echoes the themes that Mendelssohn's words suggest.  It is also a fitting final tribute to a fine lady who was always prepared to guide others as they dared to step out on their own.

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the new year:

"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown"  and he replied:

"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God, that shall be to you better than a light and safer than any known way.

Emma:  For Mum

Mum would have wanted to comfort us all today, because that was her way.  She would have chosen gentle words of wisdom from one of her favourite books, 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran to lift our spirits and bring us peace of mind.

If there was one thing Mum knew it was that there are no endings, only beginnings; and Gibran's words echo all that she believed.

From 'The Prophet' by Kahlil Gibran:

On Death
Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death."
And he said: "You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran

Robin: For Mum

The poem that I'm about to read to you Anthony found in Mummy's 'Book of Days.'  It had been meticulously copied out in Mummy's hand, so we can assume it was one of her favourites. And also, I think she would like to think it gives us a small insight into her transition from Here to There:

The Ship - Leonard Lyons

I am standing on the seashore...

A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her.

All at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, 'there! she is gone!

Gone where?  Gone from my sight - that is all.

She is just as long in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side

And just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination.

Her diminished size is in me - not in her!

And just at the moment when someone at my side says 'there! She is gone

There are other voices ready to take up the glad cry, 'There! She comes!'

And that is dying.