The End....

It was a good send off, lots and lots of people came and purple was everywhere. The sun shone in between the rain bursts and the priest was 20 minutes late. No one dropped the coffin, the family were united and I managed to speak without crying. Tahni and Daniel spoke beautifully and mum was proud of us all.

Many many thanks to my peeps for turning up for me. Lisa, Nat and Jen...I love you guys.

And you my K, I love you too.

Just so you know, this is what I said....

When Father Richard told me that mum asked for me to speak here today I was a bit horrified. My brain isn’t working properly right now and I am at a loss for words.

My little mum has gone and we are, all of us who love her, at a loss.

My mum was only five foot tall but she could fill a room with her energy. She was a force to be reckoned with, as anyone who crossed her path would know.

She did everything with her whole heart and if you were loved by mum, you knew it.

If she was cranky with you, well, you knew that too!

She was the oldest child born to Jack and Joan Harvey, sister to Jan and niece of Colin and Helen Harvey. She grew up in Wollongong and the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.

My mother had four children, three very early in her life and Daniel, who came along as a late but excellent surprise. We, myself, Cherie, Alan and Daniel will always remember mum as the parent who loved us with everything she had.

She was a loving and giving person who helped a lot of people through out her life. She had a soft spot for the underdog but did not suffer fools gladly. She would be the first person to tell you to wake up and pull your head out of your bum, as I know from many personal experiences. Trying to write this for mum brought to mind a lot of f words…..ferocious, fierce, faithful, funny, fragile and fearless are a few of them.

She was opinionated and stubborn and had to always have the last word. She could drive you crazy with her pig headedness and she could make you cry with a kind and well placed word. She was also kind hearted and generous and would give you the world if she thought you really needed it. She was a strange anomaly in the business world, an honest Real Estate Agent, and she built a successful business out of nothing just by being herself and doing her best for every one. That’s just who she was.

A mass of contradictions in a way, yet also a simple and true woman.

For me my mother has always been my safe place. The place I could run to when life got too hard. No matter what else was happening in the world you always knew that you could go home to mum and somehow, she would fix whatever was wrong, or at least make it go away for a while. She was my conscience for a long while and she showed me that the meaning of courage was just standing up and doing what you believed was right, that you should always speak your mind and that you can change anything if you want to badly enough. It has been an honour to care for her.

She adored her grandchildren, Tahni, Joshua, Kayla, Shelli and Breock were bright lights in her life and they all gave her a lot of pleasure, especially in this last couple of years. My children and I were privileged to be able to move here to be close to her and Daniel and to spend a lot of time with her before she passed away.

She was Aunty Sandy, Blue Nan, Granny BlueMa and of course, Sandfly. She was also Ms Hooker of Lemon Tree Passage, a role that gave her great pleasure in spite of all of the stresses and, as she would say, that bloody Property management …..

she was loved by many and feared by quite a few. As I said, she could be a force to be reckoned with.

The last two years have been filled with lots of sadness and pain but also many many moments of great happiness and lots of laughter as well.

We have been lucky to have had this time to say good bye to mum. She would have wanted everyone to remember her laughing and happy and proud. She loved going up to Byron to spend time with Cherie and Richard and her beautiful Breock. She loved being surrounded by her family. She loved it that Tahni was able to come up regularly to help out wherever she was needed to. She was so proud of Tahni and of her other grandchildren too and I know she would want me to acknowledge this today. The central point in her life and the reason she did anything was always focused around those she loved.

I truly believe that the reason she hung on for so long even though her body was failing fast, was that she couldn’t bear to let go and not be here to boss everyone around and to make sure we were all okay. I am positive that she is here in spirit looking after us all still.

She worried most about leaving Daniel behind, her youngest son but she also knew that he is a strong and a good young man who has a loving girlfriend, many caring friends and of course, an aunty, a brother and two sisters and a whole bunch of nieces and nephews, who love him dearly and will take care of him for her.

I don’t know what else to say really, except to thank you for being here with us today to say good bye to mum. She is probably here somewhere tapping her foot and telling me to shut up and let them get on with it, so I will.

Tonight before I go to sleep I will light a candle, as I have done every night for the last two years, and I will say a little prayer for mum and for all of us and I will be grateful for having had the experience of her and that she is free from suffering now.