Laura's extraordinary journey, marked by unwavering love and support from her husband and children during the most trying and painful moments, left a profound impact on all who witnessed it.

The words that Laura wrote for this website still echo in our life: ‘’Praying when suffering is a very difficult thing to do but every night before falling asleep I always say a sentence I heard from Carron: I am who you make me, and I offer that specific moment’’.

Laura’s openness to the circumstances she found herself in and her courage in facing them touched everyone who came into contact with her. So when a memorial was organised on what would have been Laura’s 40 th birthday, people came together from all parts of Laura’s life: her CL community, a yoga teacher, Laura’s work manager, playgroup mums, and children, lots of children, for as well as her own two beautiful children, Laura loved and cared for every child she met. It could have been a day of closure, of celebration of something beautiful that ended, but instead Laura’s memorial was a moment of opening. People who knew each other through meeting Laura and her husband Conor renewed their friendships and new bonds were formed as people shared stories and shared each other’s load. Conor wanted the memorial to be a tribute to the beauty he, and everyone, had encountered in Laura and in the friendships that grew up around her.

The location was a restaurant on a Melbourne beach, where Laura and Conor had celebrated the baptism of one of their two children. Everything was prepared with care and even Melbourne’s changeable weather contributed by turning on a bright Spring day.

The nearly one hundred people present enjoyed food, company and listened to stories from Conor, who bravely shared his pain at losing his life companion and also his joy at being among friends, to remind each other that strong>Laura’s struggles were not in vain. As she now enjoys the new life with her Lord, we gave thanks for her witness to the love of Jesus for us all. Her journey transformed us and turned our eyes to the source of Love and Life. The experience of her memorial took us back to her funeral and the loving, provocative words of Fr Nembrini. Laura, he said, possessed a fundamental drive in her DNA to seek God and to discover the meaning of her life. She lived intensely her journey of self-discovery and purpose and taught us never to abandon our search for a deeper understanding of life's meaning. This is a universal longing, an innate quest, that transcends all boundaries. Even in the face of pain and suffering, Laura never turned away from her desire to understand the meaning of it all. And not just to understand it, but to enter into relationship with the origin of her existence, the source of all the beauty in her life and her ultimate destiny. The Melbourne memorial reminded us that “When death came, it found her alive!’’. We were grateful for all the beauty she brought into our lives and for her witness to the goodness of life.

Thank you, our beautiful friend Laura, for always being our friend and showing us the way.