A Celebration of a Life well lived...

Last Friday night, a friend's husband suffered a sudden heart attack and did not awake. What a shock for everyone. Today I attended a 'Celebration of Life' service at the Enoggera army Base here in Brisbane. To be precise, the service was held at the Royal Australian Regiment National Memorial Walk at Gallipoli Barracks. Yes, Cedric was an ex serviceman and well respected in all quarters of the community. Today those army buddies gave him a wonderful 'send off' and the eulogy had a number of 'stories' about  his army days. The army chaplain spoke so eloquently...

Part of the Memorial walk...

I met my friend Theresa when I started working at my last school in 2004. It wasn't long before I found out that both Theresa and her husband were good friends of DH's older brother and his wife. He was one of those people who you could describe as being 'larger than life, a glass half full person' and someone who lived life to the full. Since retiring, both had travelled extensively both overseas and here in Australia. But in the case of such a sudden and unexpected death...people are robbed of the opportunity 'to say goodbye'. My friend was very distressed and my heart ached as I heard her loud sobs...

Ivy and I went together; we were both a bit apprehensive about getting on the base...no ID required but car details were noted. Here we are at the Gaythorne RSL after the service

A former colleague and I went together and there were also 6 other staff/parents from the school community who attended. We saw our friend 'take strength' from the huge turnout of people coming to pay their respects. She will still have many dark days ahead but the love and support she got today and that which she will get from now on...will surely help.

All former colleagues/ school community members

 So many people came to the wake that the food platters were empty in no time...we did get a nice cuppa though :-)

 Just a small section of the crowd.

It was a shock to realise that Cedric was only 64...6 months older than my DH!