In the few days after I got the totally unexpected news of Lyn's death, I spent a lot of time thinking about her, as I guess everyone does when they lose someone close to them. As I recalled all my memories of Lyn - happy and not-so-happy ones - I realised how very little I really knew about Lyn's life. Not just her life before I met her, but I realised that really I didn't know very much about her day-to-day life either.

When I saw Lyn, of course we'd talk about the usual things - what we'd both been up to, things that had happened, what we'd got planned for the next few weeks and so on - but I've since realised that there were a lot of things we never talked about. This troubled me a bit, and I wondered if in some way I had let Lyn down, by knowing so few of the details of her life.

As I sometimes do when I'm troubled or sad, I picked up a book that my late grandmother gave me - it's a collection of poems and readings called "A Book of Peace". In the book, I found an extract from the writings of the great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, from his "Memoirs of Childhood and Youth". I'd like to read part of it to you:
Is there not much more mystery in the relations of person to person than we generally recognise? None of us can truly assert than we know someone else, even if we have lived with them for years. Of that which constitutes our inner life, we can impart, even to those most intimate with us, only fragments. The whole of it we cannot give, nor would they be able to comprehend it.....

Only from time to time, through some experience that we have of our companion, or through some remark that he passes as he stands for a moment close to us, as though illumined by a flash of lightning...we see him as he really is.

To this fact, that we are each a secret to the other, we have to reconcile ourselves. To know one another cannot mean to know everything about each other; it means to feel mutual affection and confidence, and to believe in one another. To analyse others - unless it be to help back to a sound mind someone who is in spiritual or intellectual confusion - is a rude commencement - for there is a modesty of soul which we must recognise, just as we do that of the body. The soul, too, has its clothing, of which we must not deprive it, and no-one has the right to say to another: 'Because we belong to each other as we do, I have a right to know all your thoughts'.

In this matter, giving is the only valuable process; it is only giving that stimulates. Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them. Only those who respect the personality of others can be of real use to them.

We can do no more that let others judge for themselves what we inwardly and really are, and do the same ourselves with them. The one essential thing is that we strive to have light in ourselves. Our strivings will be recognised by others; and when people have light in themselves, it will shine out from them.

I thought this put eloquently in to words what knowing Lyn really meant. Because of Lyn's background, and the years she spent having her life managed by services and systems of one kind and another, Lyn probably had more personal records kept about her than those of us with different life histories ever would. However, services and systems being what they are, so many details were lost - both to Lyn herself, and to the people who came in and out of her life over the years.

I first met Lyn through working in Disability Services in Ipswich. I lost touch with her when I went to work in Brisbane, but a few years later we became neighbours, and got to know each other again as friends. While I knew a bit about Lyn's history because of my work role, the words of Albert Schweitzer that I just read, helped me to realise that I didn't need, and indeed had no right, to know more about Lyn than she chose to tell me. The important thing about knowing Lyn was Lyn herself.

Some of us here today knew Lyn because of our involvement with the services she relied on. Others met Lyn through Church, or as a neighbour, or as someone they met in town and got to know. However we came to know her, Lyn made a lasting impression on all of us - because of the person she was.

Lyn was possibly one of the most direct and honest people I've known. Her thoughts and feelings were up front, in what she said and how she acted. If she wanted you to know something, she told you, straight out. Tact probably wasn't her strong point! If Lyn wanted something, then she asked - sometimes quite insistently. If she was angry or unhappy, you certainly knew about it. I remember quite a few times talking to Lyn, and she'd say something like "I played up last night", and I'd say "Why, what did you do that for?" and she'd tell me exactly what the problem was and what she'd done to make her feelings known. Lyn was a great believer in direct action.

Lyn presented herself to others exactly as she was. She didn't have many of the little or large personal vanities or self-delusions that most of us cherish about ourselves - the things that help us preserve the idealised image that we hope other people have of us. Lyn didn't expect other people to see her any differently to the way she saw herself.

I remember talking to Lyn one day in my office, and she said she'd missed her bus and didn't know how to get home. I said something like "Well, why don't you check the timetable and see when the next bus goes?" Lyn just gave me a disbelieving look (and I could see her thinking "what a twit"), then she grinned and said "Aah, Vicki, you KNOW I can't read!". That was typical of Lyn's sense of humour, too - she thoroughly enjoyed any opportunity to take the mickey out of the people she liked.

I think the only time Lyn ever kidded herself was about losing weight. Just about every time I saw her, she insisted she'd been losing lots of weight. Mind you, she also told ME that she thought I'd lost weight too, so we were quite happy to keep our mutual self-delusions on that score!

I believe that Lyn's honesty and directness flowed from her tremendously strong sense of self. By that I mean that Lyn had a wonderful grasp on her own sense of identity. She knew who she was, so she had no need to put up fronts. Lyn had a life history that would cause anyone to feel pity for her. But that wasn't why Lyn made such an impression on people. In spite of her background, or perhaps even because of it, Lyn was an individual. She had presence. No false pride, few signs of self-doubt, no false modesty. Lyn was Lyn, a whole, complex and vivid personality.

She had an exuberant spirit, and with it, a strong sense of justice. She fought hard to protect her personal dignity and integrity, and could be fierce in asserting her right to be herself. Lyn did not meekly bend her head and accept anything she thought was unfair. Because Lyn had had to fight for attention and respect for so much of her life, she sometimes didn't know where to draw the line. Sometimes it was difficult for her to understand that she couldn't demand things from friends in the same way that she could expect them from service providers. She also had to contend with the effects of an illness that sometimes reduced her ability to control her thoughts and actions.

It is a tribute to Lyn's character and spirit that so many of you here today understood this facet of Lyn's personality, and made allowances for it, for the sake of the loveable and vibrant person that she was.

Many of us have experienced Lyn's compassion, and her fellow-feeling for friends who were sad, or victims of what she regarded as injustice. On several occasions when my family and I experienced misfortune, Lyn was an unexpected and welcome source of both comfort and practical help. Lyn's friend Michelle told me about a time, just after she and her husband had separated, when she was driving Lyn home to her house for dinner. Michelle was quiet and a bit introspective. Lyn suddenly patted her arm and said, "Don't be sad, Michelle, it will be all right".

Lyn loved to feel part of the families of her friends, and really enjoyed taking part in family celebrations - birthdays and so on. She took great pleasure in having friends' children around, and even more so in getting to know everyone's pets. I think she knew the name of every one of her friends' cats and dogs.

Most of all, Lyn had a great capacity for joy. She took joy in friendships, and the knowledge that there were people in her life who liked to see her and spend time with her. She took great joy in knowing about her family, and in having a sense that there were people to whom she belonged. She really looked forward to the milestones of her year - especially her birthday, Christmas, and friends' birthdays. She took a frank and childlike pleasure in anticipating each occasion, where she would go, who would come with her, what gifts her friends would get her.

One of my most vivid memories of Lyn is how she would react when she asked for something special - a particular present for her birthday, or her favourite meal if she was coming for lunch. You'd only have to say, sure you can have that if you like, and her whole face would light up with pleasure, and she'd clap her hands and say "Oh, goody!" with absolute delight.

These are the things about Lyn that will stay with me. Not the few sketchy details of her life history, but all the vibrant facets of her personality and character. Her strength of spirit, her courage, her friendship, her honesty and the openness with which she dealt with the world. Most of all, her humour and her capacity for joy.

Lyn, you were a rare and special person, and we will miss you very much.

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