Donna's funeral

Tomorrow we're going to my Great-Aunt's funeral. Although the instant image that would pop up in anyone's mind is of an old, frail lady with a walking stick and grey hair, Donna was totally the opposite.

She was only 45, had a wonderfully optomistic outlook at life and had successfully (or so we had thought) beaten the cancer before. She was always cheery and smiling, even on the days when she'd just had chemo.

What brings this even closer to home, is that she was taken by a brain tumour, the same as what Michael had. I cant (as in, literally cant!) imagine life without Husband. He is my world. He is my best friend. He completes and complaments me. I know that it would devestate me to lose him, even though I know that we will be together forever. I simply cant imagine the pain and sorrow that Chris is going through right now. To make things worse, it was Chris's birthday on Sunday - three days after Donna had passed - and she was no longer here to wish him a Happy Birthday. Talk about sad!

We have become quite close to Donna and Chris over the last few years. Particularly since she was diagnosed with her first brain tumour, as Chris knew that Michael had also had one, and was eager to discuss how to deal with it, possible ramifications, personal triumph etc. Its wonderful that we even got to know her actually, and its kind of a long story so bear with me...

My great-grandad Cliff Richardson had 4 children (my mother's mother being one of them) and then, as sometimes happens, the marriage broke up and Cliff moved to Gympie and, after getting married a second time, had a further 3 children. As a side note to this story, Cliff was a pillar of society and was well respected in Gympie. When he had a heart attack and died, every shop in the main street shut its doors on the day of his funeral in honour of him. This has never happened before nor since. Back to the story...

The second wife was very jealous and quite protective of her little family, and so the 3 children never knew about Cliff's first family.
Around 10 years ago (Im not sure when exactly, this is a guess) my Mum decided to find the second family to surprise her mum. Mum finally tracked down Chris (Donna had answered the phone) and told him who she was and what she wanted. Chris was surprised but very welcoming and very open to the idea. He called back the next day to organise a meeting with his new family :) Mum co-ordinated a meeting at the Gympie cemetary and managed to get Nan (Chris's sister) to come all the way up from Bribie Island (Nan didnt come up here very often, despite having two daughters in the area). The funniest thing was, when we all met up at Cliff's graveside, Nan thought Chris and Donna were the cemetary prorietor and his wife - she had no idea who he was, until Mum explained it all to her. :) What a great surprise!
Sadly, Chris's two sisters are still in denial, but we're ok with that, because eventually, they're gonna come around!
So basically, if it wasnt for my Mum doing her geneology, we wouldnt even know Chris and Donna, which would be very sad as they are wonderful people.

Anyway, Im glad that we have the opportunity to attend her funeral as she is family, and family is so important. When I spoke to Chris earlier today, he said he was putting together a powerpoint type presentation of photos and video of Donna's life. He had the (amazing!) forethought to pre-record her eulogy as he was concerned that he would be too emotional tomorrow to carry it out in the way that she deserved. What a wonderful idea!

Tomorrow will be hard, but not as hard as it will be for Chris and their family.