My Dearest Natalie,
Today is your 52nd birthday, and while I knew it was in September, I was never sure of the exact date. I wonder if our parents acknowledged this after you passed? Something tells me they probably couldn’t bear to face this. Did you have a first birthday party? If you did, I can just imagine it would have been pure joy, as our parents were the best for ensuring that birthdays were filled with cake, family and laughter. WABB had gone over the top for me on many occasions, for which I’m incredibly grateful.
But what I’ve also now been able to confirm is the date of your death. You died in surgery on June 22nd, 1976 at the Harefield Hospital in England. Medical records have already been expunged, but things were likely dire as you had to be taken overseas for the procedure. Someone very close to me gave the impression that there was certainly hope and expectation that you would survive. I was finally able to obtain your death certificate, and seeing the registration details, including our dad’s signature, has me picturing their distraught selves trying to process your death and arrange for the repatriation of your remains in a city where they had no support.
You were brought back home and buried on July 3rd, which was our grandmother’s birthday. I believe your grave is next to our grandfather’s, who died just three months before you. In one of the few references to your passing, our father once mustered that “1976 was not a good year.”
There are a few coincidences and strange connections that I have come across. For example, I was born on the 13th, and our dad died on the 13th. Our mum was born on the 22nd, and you died on the 22nd. I also can’t shake the belief that all the women on our mum’s line are cursed just based on what happened to you, mummy, and then our grandmother — but that’s for another discussion.
In positive news, now that I’ve confirmed the date of your death and burial, I can move forward with getting a tombstone for your grave, and the epitaph will read,
“Natalie Sianmarie Boyd Brown. Beloved daughter of Bev and Alan. Guardian angel to Warren.”
Keep soaring, sweet girl.