SINCLAIR, Diana Ruth 26th September, 2014 Dearly loved wife of Andrew and loving mother of David and Nicholas. Sadly missed by all. Eulogy delivered by David Sinclair Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get….but we make a life by what give." We are here today to honor the outstanding and record-breaking life of Diana Sinclair, also known as Dee, Di, Aunty, Mom and Nana. What I suggest we all do, at least for the next few minutes, is to suspend our tears, suspend our anger, and let us remember Diana, the role-model sister, wife, mother, grandmother, and all round generous human being. Thank you all for coming today. I am amazed how many lives Mom touched. Marlene, Mum’s sister, and her husband Terry were unable to join us here today but we know they are here in spirit. We are joined by Mom’s nephew Angus and her niece Heather, and by her very best friends Liz, Joy, and Enika, who were like second sisters to Mom over the years and who single handedly kept Telstra in business. Diana was born in Strathfield on the 31st October, 1941, the daughter of Myrtle and Douglas McTackett, who ran a successful dental practice. Along the way, she became the big sister of Marlene Walker, the devoted wife of Andrew Sinclair for 49 years, and mother to two boys, my brother Nick and I, while managing a career in medical technology. She was the devoted and very proud grandmother of five grandkids: Madeline, Joel, Natalie, Lucas and Ben, who will carry her memory and pass on many of the stories we will tell today, possibly into the 22nd century. Some of you knew Diana decades ago, some recently. And while most people change during their lives, she was always consistent. We’ve received hundreds of notes from friends and family around the world, and they all had the same theme: “generous, selfless, wonderfully gracious, and compassionate.” We all know that today is a sad day but it’s also a happy one. Actually we should be rejoicing, for reality could have been very different. Though it was helpful to forget and easy to ignore, Mom was diagnosed with non-responsive cancer in 1994. She had a tumor the size of a grapefruit and one lung removed, and was given a year to live. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, consider that Paul Keating was still Prime Minister, phone numbers still had seven digits, and the show “Mom and Son” was on TV, one of Mum’s favorites. Many, if not all of us, never expected such a small, petite person like Mom to survive long. If she had died then, yes, I would tell you to go ahead and cry. But she didn’t. She had enormous strength. She broke the medical record for life lived on one lung. My Dad, Nick and I were with her in hospital last week, she was in good spirits, and the doctors and nurses told us they’d never seen anyone with one lung live that long. I think Mom surprised herself. Doctors weren’t even sure how to treat someone like her. What was her secret? She could be stubborn, and yes, she was a fighter, but I suspect she was just too busy taking care of everyone else. That’s what she did. That was her mission in life. One reasons we underestimated her resilience is that she rarely moved fast. There were, however, two exceptions. There was the time, when I was seven, when Mom and I saw houses about to burn in a bushfire and she ran to save the houses from burning. By directing the fire engines to the houses, she saved them. I clearly recall being less shocked about the 50 meter flames bearing down on the houses, than I was seeing my Mom run for the first time. The only other time she moved fast, my Dad would say, was when you told her you might like seconds. “Just sit down,” was the anthem of our home and at family gatherings. If she wasn’t giving you nuts, it was smoked oysters and blue cheese. If you didn’t want them, she’d say, “how about I just leave them here in case you get hungry,” and she’d sneak away. In my family, the purpose of a meal was to discuss what we would eat at the next one. In high school, my brother Nick was in a rock band. He his tough friends used to practice downstairs in the rumpus room, singing about drugs and rock and roll. They quickly came down to earth when Mum would arrive with milk and cookies for everyone. “Thanks Mrs. S.” they would say. I often wondered why she so desperately wanted to feed us all. A clue was that she served it, but barely ate any herself. I came to realize -- only after I’d moved out and lost 15 kilos -- that cooking and feeding people was Mom’s ultimate expression of generosity and love. It was the way Mum showed that she cared about you. Occasionally Mum did something for herself, and that was art. In a few brief bursts, she produced a wealth of paintings and statues. We Sinclair men were truly fortunate to live in a house where about half the paintings were by Mum and many of the sculptures, vases and bowls were too, each one etched on the bottom with DiS. They serve as a wonderful memory for us surrounded by her art proclaiming “Di Sinclair was here.” Di loved to travel, though she didn’t like to fly. She would grip the armrest of the plane and Dad used to say “what are you doing, trying to lift the plane up with your hands.” Despite her fear, she went to Hong Kong, Dubai, The Phillipines, Singapore, Amsterdam, UK, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, hungary 4x, Italy, Serbia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Tahiti. That was before she had cancer. I figured with one lung she’d be lucky to see Newcastle. Who would have expected she would be able to visit Hawaii, Greece, Turkey, Canada 3x, Russia, Finland, Estonia, The Czech republic, Mexico, China, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Spain, Morocco, Malaysia, Thailand and the USA 8 times. Diana also had a special way of expressing herself. My Dad was always “Darl” unless he was in trouble. She called us kids bugalugs and silly sausages. We'd always have a laugh and mum was the first to laugh and make fun of herself. It’s hard to forget her infectious laugh. When she got angry her worst swear words were “pigs bum” or “Oh Sugar! Excuse my French.” She rarely said bad things about people. If she didn’t like someone, the worst she would call them was “a piss ant”. The other thing that Diana didn’t like was buttons on devices. She just didn’t get them. She could barely operate a phone. My Dad would joke that she couldn’t even wear a shirt if it had buttons. Finally, the iPad came out and she loved it because it only had one button. Another word used in the last few days to describe Mom was elegance. She washed and dried her hair every day. As kids we’d be scared to walk into the bedroom lest we see Mum with hair in curlers and cucumber slices placed under her eyes to “stop the puffiness.” What ever she did it worked. She had few wrinkles, feet like a 20 year old, and not a grey hair - at 72! Di always wanted a daughter she could chat to. Instead she put up with us boys, who were always “trying to kill each other”. Even our dog was a boy. She eventually had two granddaughters she could share her jewelry with. She was the matriarch. You wouldn’t know it. She wasn’t loud. She wasn’t in your face. You had to ask her opinion if you wanted it. But she always made the final decision in our family. Di was dependable. She stood by her friends and she stood by her family. We always knew we could go to Mum if we were in trouble. She might not agree but she'd support anything we did. As a parent, you could do worse than to look to her as a role model. John Bunyan said “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” Mum knew this to be true. Through her generosity to all of us she lived a great life, and many of us, myself included can never repay her, except perhaps by passing her generosity forward to those around us and to future generations. Andrew, or Dad as some of us like to call him, has repaid Diana’s generosity and then some. Mum and Dad were not a day apart for 49 years. For decades in the morning he’d bring her a cup of tea with Vegemite on toast in bed. For the past few years he’s been a saint, helping Mom get through long nights and hospital stays. Last week, he spent all night next to her bed waiting to see if she’d be OK and was there by her bedside when she passed away. Although she should have departed us many times, she just ignored it. But finally God said "Di, I think I’d like seconds, and Mom was there". If there is a heaven, right now Mum is sitting next to God asking if he'd like any smoked oysters. Mum, it was truly amazing that you lived to see your grandchildren and to travel the world, despite your illness and despite what the doctors said. Your memory lives on in us all and your DNA is carried on in five happy, active young kids ages 7 to 11 (I know because I’ve done the genetic tests). But its worth asking why does it make US feel better knowing that you saw so much? On days like this you have to ask what the point? Why are we here? It’s nice to think you can you take your memories with you, and maybe you can. In either case, there are only two jobs that really matter in life: to be kind and generous to friends and family, and to keep life going on this this crazy planet by raising a well adjusted family. And with that, Mom, I just want to say congratulations on a job well done.
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