I’ve heard of so many deaths lately. I’m not sure whether it is because I’m paying more attention, or whether it’s just one of those times. Like we’re existing in some liminal space between our old lives and new.

It’s hard to process, really. With so much badness, every day, how do we continue to process the loss. The loss of friends and loved ones. The feeling of “loss” over everything happening now is a little hard to manage. So… I’ll write about it.

One of my uncles passed away a couple of months ago, just before we went back to stage three lockdown, and it felt so odd, only being able to have 50 people at the funeral. It was still a tribute though. We were still able to go, be with our family, pay our respects and begin to process the loss.

Last week Lynette, a close family friend, passed away. She had been battling cancer for many years, and she fought so very hard for every extra day she had.

Lynette was my mum’s best friend; she was Karly’s godmother. She was a pivotal part of our formative years.

Mum has stories upon stories of their misspent youth. I’ve heard those stories so many times that I could probably recite them.

Auntie Lynette was fierce, funny and strong. We may not have seen her as much in our older years, but the times we did see her it was like no time had passed.

Her and mum would laugh and reminisce, and I would largely be sarcastic and random.

One of my favourite memories was sitting in the back seat of mum’s car with Karly, Mum and Lynette in the front. They were talking about Killer Turds in Reeboks and Karly responded saying “That’s what you’d call a runny shit”.

They laughed. They laughed hysterically. Auntie Lynette had this booming roar of a laugh, and you couldn’t help but laugh along…. Unless you were a 6-year-old wearing Reeboks, who didn’t quite understand what was being laughed about, and thought everyone was teasing her…

That 6-year-old (Me) leaned over to the front seat, swung her arm back and punched Lynette straight in the face, giving her a black eye.

The car went silent, for all of half a second. Then Mum started to reprimand me. Until Auntie Lynette said

“Nah, leave her Kath, it was a bloody good punch”

It was classic Tanya, over-reacting to something she didn’t understand. I deserved to be smacked, I deserved whatever reprimand Mum had for me.

While I obviously got told off, Auntie Lynette never made me feel like too much of a jerk about it. It became a running joke.

That was just the type of person Auntie Lynette was, she could appear rough as guts, but she loved her people and would do anything for them. Even if that anything was protecting my stupid 6-year-old ego.

She was also the first gay person we met. It was never a thing though, it was just a fact, Auntie Lynette loved females. It was normal and it is probably one of the reasons Karly and I grew up believing in marriage equality and equal rights for the LGBTI+ community.  

Now, being faced with her passing, and not being able to attend the funeral I had to find a way that I could still honour her. A little way that I could let the universe know that a special person has gone, and they’ve left a mark.

This is my tribute.

Vale Auntie Lynette.