Girl Thing: Nana who gave joy to world

This is a story about Nana. Nana, her five children, 15 grandchildren, two great grandchildren ... and me.

Having lost my lot of grandies when I was only a wee one, I have never really understood the close bond between grandparent and grandchild, nor the way a matriarch can hold a family together tighter than superglue. Or maybe that's just this Nana.

Joy is her name and although I only met her a couple of times, at her funeral last week and the family party afterwards, it seemed to me that never has a person been more aptly named.

Joy was my boyfriend's Nana and, for most of her long life, she reigned supreme like a benevolent god or a gracefully ageing monarch over an expanding clutch of family that can only be described as "good sorts". And as I sat quietly in an increasingly loud circle of family, I learned where they got it from.

Nana had brought up her brood the way all nanas did - old-fashioned manners, a strong sense of family and traditions like trifle at Christmas and an ancient wooden lolly jar circa 1970 that told a tale of sticky little fingers reaching in through the decades and down the generations.

Nana believed in always putting your best foot forward, wearing skirts at all times and having make-up and jewellery on whenever possible ("Anyone can dress down, it takes a special person to dress up").

As the stories tumbled out along with the odd tear, it seemed like we hadn't just lost Nana, we'd lost an irreplaceable piece of the past, a link to a time when things were done properly, when family came first and when there was always time for baking.

The nanas of today quite frankly look far too fashionable, exercise more than they ought and don't even know how to knit. Should I ever have the opportunity to be a nana, I can't help wondering if I'll be slotting in appointments with the grandchildren into my i-cal in between client meetings and trim flat whites with my friends.

As the pace of life has picked up and families have gotten smaller and more scattered, I knew that last night I was enjoying for the first time a piece of something that was almost gone for good: a large, rollicking, close-knit family that all knew each other enough to skip the chit chat and go straight to Nana's liquor cabinet before settling into her comfy re-covered La-Z-Boys for tall tales and stories of family holidays on the farm.

Just as Nana represented a time that has gone, so too did her immaculate home where we were gathered. Nick-nacks gathered over a long life and suspended in time when her house was newly built in the late 1970s were perfectly displayed and cared for right up to the end.

There was no delegation of duties for this old girl - she cleaned her own home and looked after herself and all those that gathered around her right until the end of her 87 years.

After a brief illness, she left quietly and peacefully, with her jewellery and make-up perfect, her death as good as her long life.

At first, it seemed a bit daunting being the only outsider in this big bold circle of Joy. But, by the time the final story was told and the last drop of her sherry shared, I was glad to have been a part of it, if only for one last day.