Project 289 - Day 167 : Sad Day Yes But Love Reaffirmed Definitely

Today I was in my home town of Alstonville for my Auntie Liz's funeral.

After a night of fractured sleep, I woke up with a knot in my stomach dreading what was to come. But the morning turned out to be this bright wonderful affirmation of life in the midst of great sadness as the family including my lovely cousin, Rebecca and my Uncle and Aunt drew together and reminisced about Auntie Liz, tried on her collection of fun glasses, gave homes to her teddy bear collection (I took home two since you can't split teddy bears apart as you would know!), and caught up on lots of family news and holding of gorgeous niece, Zara -see below). Despite the looming funeral, we celebrated all the things that make our family special, and I even tried on my Great Aunt Lizzie's fur coat, the photos of which shall remain locked away in a hidden vault forever!

The first official part of the day was the crematorium at Goonellabah. In a sense the usual order of things was turned on it's head as we held the crematorium service ahead of the memorial service - caused by availability at the crematorium and not in an attempt to mess with tradition - something my Nanna couldn't quite understand, poor thing. I felt for her as Auntie Liz was her last surviving relative (her sister) and she is in effect now "marooned in history". The service itself was conducted by a good friend of Mum and Dad's, and was wonderfully informal, with all of encouraged to get up and recount what we loved about Auntie Liz (I am pictured during my recounting of my memories) and it resulted in lots of funny stories of a wonderful lady with a larger than life approach to life. The most touching part was sprinkling pink rose petals on her coffin, which proved hardest for my Nanna who struggled through with the help of my Mum.

After what turned out to be a wonderfully affirming time, we went to The House With No Steps' cafe situated on a property just outside Alstonville and largely staffed by people with mild intellectual disabilities. The food is not fancy but it is delicious, the staff are wonderfully friendly, and the lunch was a restful, fun interlude in an emotionally intense day, where we also found time to get photos of all five of the great nieces and nephews in attendance in Auntie Liz's glasses. She would have loved the fun we had with that, and laughed in her infectious way watching it all happen. It was a tribute that perfectly captured Auntie Liz's sense of silly fun.

The official part of the day finished with a beautifully orchestrated 40 minute service at the Nursing Home where Auntie Liz used to live, and it was touching to realise how much the staff, the chaplain (a lovely, warm hearted lady called Beth) and everyone loved Auntie Liz, and with a Life Sketch by my Aunt Helen and Uncle Gary, and a couple of Auntie Liz's favourite hymns was a fitting send off to a remarkable lady who we will all greatly miss....

..... then I had a mad dash to Ballina/Byron airport for my flight back to Sydney (thanks Stephen!!) and an arrival back in Sydney where I had this weird feeling that the previous 24 hours had all happened so quickly that they felt like a weird surreal dream. It took some time to emotionally acclimatise back to Sydney but I was glad I gto a chance to say goodbye to my lovely Auntie Liz and spend what turned out to be a remarkable 24 hours with my family.