Roslyn Elizabeth

Last Saturday, as I thought about the Sepia Saturday idea, I was wishing that Aunty Ros was still about and though the photo is far from sepia I doubt I can continue with the theme without reference to Ruby's daughter. Look at those eyes.
I don't know a whole lot of Dad's family stories but I know that Aunty Ros liked to tell them. Rozzy, as she liked to call herself, and I got along well and she would have loved to tell me lots of stories but instead we talked of work and children and current family stuff. I didn't ask much about the things she remembered.
I have an idea this photo might have been a 21st birthday souvenir, which would place it at 1965. I don't remember Rozzy looking anything like this, my Ros was ravaged by asthma and in turn steroid drugs, heart disease, diabetes and leg amputations.
Rozzy was a bit eccentric and we shared a crazy almost compulsive love of cookbooks.
A Women's Weekly recipe for a ginger and carrot loaf was Aunty Ros' signature dish and even when she was very ill she would pour love into making them for her Uncle (my great uncle) Harold. He would delightedly scoff the whole thing in a sitting or two and she would complain of his outrageous behaviour. I will never forget being at her place once and finding greased and papered loaf tins waiting in the fridge for the time when she had energy to actually make the loaves. It took true determination for her to persist with the project when she was so terribly compromised but she did it with grace and that was how she lived most of the time: one foot slowly, painfully, determinedly in front of the other.
I took Rozzy home after my brother's wedding and she gave me a couple of pieces of jewellery. When she got to the third I told her enough was enough, she said she would leave a note in the box bequeathing it to me. I laughed and told her that I would see her again. Only weeks later one final asthma attack took her away and I can't even remember what it was she had planned to give me.