I'm so sorry.
It is weird that even though you lost touch and it was so long ago, it can still hit pretty hard. The age thing is always such a shock too. HUGS

My mum was raised by her old school German mother and our holiday dinners were always big and full of different choices of food.

I wanted to give you a link I found that I though you might be interested in but thought maybe now was a bad time, but hey, it might be a great time to help cheer you up a bit.
I was searching interesting youtube channels and this one was a suggestion, https://www.youtube.com/user/scholagladiatoria/
It is pretty cool.