Monday, February 12, 2007

Aveline's Memorial

On Saturday a group of about 30 of Aveline's family and friends gathered for a memorial service in the grotto at "Everglades", a park which was a special favourite of Aveline's (in fact, where she almost got married in a previous 'incarnation'!). Aveline was a very multi-facetted woman, one who had lived a number of distinct phases in her life. Her 'incarnations' as she called them. Many of her Sydney friends have known her through a number of these 'incarnations', and when she was in Sydney it was almost as if she could celebrate some of the softer sides of her personality. Her memorial reflected some of these memories.

After the speeches and music, we settled in for an informal picnic afternoon with lots of laughs and shared stories. It was a lovely afternoon, and despite the sadness (and just a few tears) it was a happy event with lots of laughs, good food and drink. Which is how we like to think Aveline would have liked it to be. A big thanks from me for all the effort that went into organising such a great afternoon.

Aveline Flowers
Our guradian devil (left) and her favourite frangipani flowers (right)

Candle Memories
Louise put together a beautiful selection of memories of Aveline

Chocolate Cake Favourite Sweeties
Some yummy chocolate cake (left) and some of Aveline's favourite sweeties (right)

Silly String! Petals & Doves
Silly string and glitter spray were the order of the day (left) and rose petals and doves in the grotto (right)

Meg Mikey
Meg played some beautiful pieces of music (left) and Mikey mc'ed and spoke eloquently about his memories of Aveline (right)

Deb Grant
Deb, a long term friend and mentor of Aveline's, spoke about her memories (left) and Grant came up from Melbourne to share some special memories with us and be a part of the celebration of her life (right)

Speeches Wee Jasper
Some of the assembled friends and family (left) and Mousicles & Mr Tops's little cutie Jasper (right)

Meg Getting Fairy'd Up
The flag said "Pace" - Peace (left) and the brief said "wear something pink" so I did (right)

Fairy
I normally wear my fairy wings on the inside

Goop Aveline
Chocolate goop with the strawberry(ish) 'cream' in a can (it was kinda disgusting) that Aveline found in the supermarket once (left) and our beautiful special friend, who we'll miss so (right)

See all the photos as a set, and all my other entries tagged Aveline.

6 comments:

spyder said...

Thank you for the lovely photos and post, Andrew. I'm sorry to have missed the memorial but I'm glad it was a special day for eveyone involved.

Cheers

SW

harry said...

"I normally wear my fairy wings on the inside"

Blog line of the year!
Lovely photos.
Thanks.

The Other Andrew said...

Gabrielle, glad you liked the photos. It was a lovely day.

Harry, thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Andrew. Always love your photos, but extra special when we're missing moments like these...

Nice wings.

The Other Andrew said...

Thanks ob! Shame you guys couldn't be there, but I hope you know we considered you there in spirit. I hope the photos help that.

Loving your pics of Flagstaff btw - it looks like you've been having a great time with your family, and the snow looks amazing. Cold, but amazing.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

hello TOA - sorry I haven't commented till now, I was on a nice trip down the South Coast. nice to go and relax :-)

these are great photos, you have captured that serenity and beauty that I think was an important thing to Aveline. something she had within, and something she wanted in life, but didn't often get to have for very long... there was often too much other stuff to have to deal with.

I hope she gets to come back and have more serenity.