for John Delaney: "I know you are very proud of the adults we have become", by Anne Delaney - 2020

22 September 2020, Corpus Christi Catholic Church, St Ives, Sydney, Australia

Hello - Anne here, John & Joan’s 4th child.

Thank you for coming to Dads, (John Delaney’s) funeral mass – I really appreciate your thoughts and prayers today. I am sorry that I cannot be with you all to formally say farewell to dad but pleased to let you know we are viewing from Melbourne, where we are in our second lockdown to beat this horrible COVID-19 virus. "

2020 will be a year that will be remembered for many reasons – but one, The year we lost our “Big John”.
I did explore all options of what I could do, to be in Sydney, but our health, everyone’s health is most important, and I am at peace with my decision to bury Dad at the earliest time available since he passed, so he can finally be reunited with mum.

As most of you know, my relationship with Dad was a bittersweet one... I can honestly say, it was sweeter more often than not, around 97% sweet. Dad loved us all so much, he lived for the family, “his family”, and that is what he installed in all of us kids. ‘Family is key’. He may have had his favourites, just like we have a favourite footy team we barrack for, or a favourite meal we choose for our birthday dinner, or a favourite season in the year... but his love for the six of us kids was equal. Dad was a homebody, he worked hard in his Insurance job Monday to Friday, and then on the weekends... he loved spending time in his home, and in his garden. He had a good sense of humour, he liked a joke or two, but his faith was very important to him – never missing a Sunday or an All Saints Day mass. When we left home, he would test us by asking, Did we go to Church on the weekend?, and if we said “yes”, he would ask us, what was said in the sermon? or what Saints day was during the week?!

Dad was a proud and private man, with sound work ethics and very strong in his beliefs and thoughts. He thought he knew best.... We as adults always thought it was funny, when he would try to give us advice on “how to sell a home?”, “or buying a home?”, so funny, as the only house he ever bought was 30 Apps Avenue, North Turramurra. This was his castle, and he was happy there.... so happy that he did not want to contemplate leaving.

Dad was a strict and protective dad, he did it in a very caring way, we were the neighbourhood kids, that never received bikes as gifts growing up, as he was concerned about us falling off, or getting hit by a car .... which to his credit, he was right! As I was hit riding a friend’s bike when I was 9 years old and ended up in Hornsby Hospital with broken bones.

Dad was a great provider, he cared for all of us well, allowing us to grow up in a loving, safe family home, in a leafy neighbourhood with a pool in the backyard, and attending nice schools. An area, where we have made lifelong friendships, still to this day. Dad what you did provide us all with, was many hugs, too many that I lost count in my younger years.... but that is why I cannot be with you today, as I am a “people person”, and love a kiss and cuddle, and me not being able to hug my brothers or sisters, or my nieces and nephews, and friends, would be too hard... so best I keep my distance. A 900-kilometer distance.
Thank you for the many great years we had you on this earth, as eighty one years of the 84.5 years you lived, you were in perfect health... just the last couple of years we had a few health scares, but you always remained independent and resilient. There were some testing times, where you really pushed my buttons, but I look back and I believe it was me pushing your buttons, to live your life differently or try something new, like join a friendship group, or go to the theatre, thinking I knew what was best for you, maybe a little bossy at times. I know you are very proud of the adults we have become, just like – we are proud of you. How you managed, after losing Joan, our mum at such a young age, being a widower at 53 years young... you coped well, really well.

As mentioned, Dad, loved time with the family, that was when he was happiest.... I will come to Sydney when we are able to travel across borders and without restrictions, and we as a family can have a celebration of dad’s life.

Rest in peace Dad – I love you - love Anne

For Matt Carney: 'Here was a man who could take sharp edges and soften them to a curve', by Emily Rowe - 2011

30 June 2011, St Mary’s Church, North Sydney, NSW, Australia

Hi everybody. What a life! I need to say that again.

What a life!

We all wander on through our days and hours and minutes and live with this assumption that it will all keep ticking over.

That tomorrow will follow today, that we will pick up the dry cleaning on Tuesday and have a picnic on Sunday.

Last Saturday night, Matt, Cal and myself sat up and watched Kung Fu Panda together. At a very poignant moment in the movie the shaman turtle said,

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift . That is why it is called the present.”

Matt and I locked eyes over Cals head and smiled at each other.

Matt and I met almost 10 years ago. October 2001. At the time I was living in New York.

I met him at a major sculpture show in Chicago. My sister was in from LA exhibiting and I went along to support her. Only weeks before the World Trade Center had been bombed and I was numb, dazed and grief stricken as all New Yorkers were. Matt had booked his trip to the states before that terrible day, but being Matt, bravely set off to America, despite the climate of terror.

The first part of Matt I saw was his leather clad butt up a ladder. I remember eyeing him off and watching him descend.

He was introduced to me in a group of people and when our eyes met I felt like I had known him forever.
Cos Matt was like that. When he gave you his full open smile,

His direct eye contact, you felt like you were the only person in the world. He made everyone feel like that and that’s why you are all here today.

I felt so safe with Matt because although I was in America, the show was full of people from everywhere. Having come from New York people didn’t know what to say to me. They all avoided me. Except Matt.

We talked a lot over those few days and when he kissed me on the forehead goodbye as I went off to New York and he to London he said, ”This is the start of a very long conversation.”

And so it was – the rest is history. I came back to Australia in January 2002 and we were married in January 2003.

Calpurnia was born May 2004. We didn’t muck around.

We had the most fantastic life together. Full of art, and music and literature. Little girl cuddles, bushwalks, Zhenya the husky and closeup our perfect white cat with different colored eyes.

We dove off the rocks at Adventure Bay for abalone, scaled the heights of Fluted Cape.

I watched him nurture the exotic trees in the garden of his mother Natalie’s dascha on Bruny. The arrangement here on his coffin is made up of those trees. The tortured willows, the blue spruce, the grevillieas and filberts.

He loved nature. Loved its force. He would rig up his windsurfer and head out to Simpsons Bay when the roaring 40’s came through and race the cars along the Neck doing 80kms an hour.

He’d come home salty and sandy and cold with a huge grin on his face and yell “I’m alive!” as he came through the door.

And he sure was. He didn’t waste a minute.

His whole life was a celebration. His quest was for meaning.

In his sculpture he worked patiently, conjuring up such beauty for people. Everything boldly declaring,’You are not alone.

His schools of fish, the woman holding the world in the palm of her hands. The filigree leaf of exquisite perfect fibenaci detail.

His bronze woman pouring. The woman offering the cup of life. Woman in Space. Obsession. I could go on forever – better to google him and cruise his website – such a massive body of work for one so young.

He had an amazing work ethic. In the studio 6 days a week. Even when inspiration was slow in coming, he kept working.

These pieces here, the crescents are part of a series he started back in November 2001. He started with the huge pile of scrap metal under his bench and set to make something beautiful from the unwanted.

Here was a man who could take sharp edges and soften them to a curve, rusty sharp lines became the moon. What a gift.

After Cal was born, we started playing music together.

Matt on flute or guitar and I sang. I went back to the piano so I could accompany him on the flute.

And he got serious about the guitar. He fell in love with his guitar and would get up at 4am in the morning to practise before Cal and I awoke.

When we moved to Sydney we started getting some gigs and he encouraged me to start writing songs for us to play. So I did.

And writing from what I knew – they were love songs.

“Hello lovebugs of loveness” he would say to me.

Together everyday, talking art, playing music, raising our daughter we were rarely apart. And to the last , I still swooned when he kissed me.

Matt also unearthed a new passion in the last few years. Technology had advance to a place that now allowed my dyslexic husband to read through audio books. What joy he found! The wisdom of living with immediacy of action blew beyond the stratosphere as he discovered history, science, literature. Down in his workshop he would shape his waxes for casting with his ipod plugged in, soaking it all in.

He had always felt so compromised by his dyslexia and here he had found a way to feed his mind.

The amazing kind father and husband grew.

The already empathic, sensitive, intuitive soul grew.

And when he left us last Thursday, he was perfect.

I blessed him the night before he died. I anointed him with oils and kissed him all over his face.

We didn’t know he was going. He did. He had made peace with relationships he had found troubling, he had been given a chance since he was diagnosed with cancer to really think about what his life meant to him.

And he was happy. Really happy.

He said to me only a few weeks ago,

“Em, If I die, that’s okay. I’ve had an amazing life. I love my life and I have loved all of it. Even the dark times.”

Another time as we were working through the shock of his diagnosis he said to me,

“I don’t have a bucket list. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing. I love my life.”

And last Thursday morning he cupped my face in his hands , kissed me deeply and said,

“I love you more than you will ever know,”

He was a prince among men.

I know that you are all so sad he is gone, but be glad he was a part of your life.

Learn from him. Explore your desires, challenge yourself.

Make beauty. Love freely. Be who you are.

Because this is it. The present .

I have this brief time here to try and capture him . And I could go on forever. And when I sit down that moment will be passed. Don’t waste your moments.

I’m looking forward to talking with you back at Mum and Dads. Sharing our unique precious moments that we had with Matt.

This song is a song Matt and I wrote together and we recorded last year.

It’s called life on love alone and Matts guitar rocks!

I’ll end where I began.

What a life! What a life!,

Emily Rowe is a grief counsellor (The Good Grief Coach) who posted this beautiful speech on Twitter on the tenth anniversary of her husband’s death. She was a guest on the 24th episode of the Speakola podcast, a beautiful chat. She recorded the speech for us too.