(9 November 2018) 24 December 1945 – 3 November 2018 Pat Embleton was first and foremost my mother – that is how I saw her early on – but as I grew older, I came to see who she was in the world – and over the past week, who she was to all of you. And it is this dichotomy, for me, the person of contrasts that I got to experience over the past 44 years. She was firm, resolute, and sturdy like cobblestone, while at the same time, soft, and malleable like the sand used to take hold of the stones and keep her path firm. Contrasts. Opposites. Paving her way. She was born, Patricia Anne Fletcher, and although born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, in England she was a South African woman. She was an only child, who embraced the world. Her working class parents were a contrast in themselves: her gentle natured father who survived Dunkirk, and her mother, a strong-willed and accomplished woman in her own right. Her sons, Michael and I, are a contrast, each with differing characteristics she admired and
