Maddie's Eulogy for Eli
I am one of the valley kids who have come to honor Eli here today.
Beautiful Eli, daring, funny, loving, cheeky, and with the most soulful eyes.
I grew up here in St Albans with Joel and Eli, they are like brothers to me.
We shared so many adventures together, times that I will cherish forever.
Our childhood was unique in so many ways.
We were blessed to grow up where we did and our amazing parents formed a community where we could be nurtured an allowed to be free.
It was a privilege for all of us to be involved with the preparing of Eli's grave yesterday.
I feel honored because I have been able to collect some clay from the earth and I will make something beautiful for him. I hope it will help the healing for all of us.
It was lovely to hear all of Eli's mates telling stories and remembereing him as a great young man.
It was especially lovely for me to hear their stories as my memories are from another time and another place.
Very first memories ......Tiny Joel & Tiny Eli .... we were all tiny then.
They were playing in a puddle after the rain in their little froggy gumboots ........ I really wanted a pair!
We became friends and started to go to Macdonald Valley School together.
Eli was the coolest kid in the school, with his funky hot tuna hat, mischievious antics and his beautiful laugh.
For our school carnivals, Eli always got the job of holding the school flag, and because he was so cute and charismatic, we always won.
Our days at primary school were incredible, but on the bus ride home with Melba and Julie was where the fun really started, and so the Huckleberry Finn adventures began.
Let me try to paint a picture of my fondest memories.
There was never a dull moment with Joel and Eli, we always kept each other on our toes.
We always had some planned expedition that we would have to prepare for, even in the middle of winter.
We'd be there waiting for whatever challenge came our way.
One day, armed with bow and arrow made out of willow tree branches and bailing twine, and our fishing rods made out of sticks and safety pins, we set out for the river.
Upon arriving we set our bait and dug our fishing lines into the sand and went off in search of watermelons.
When we arrived back at our lines, to our delight, one had been pulled out of the sand and nearly into the water.
We ran toward it and started pulling it in with all our strength, I think we thought we'd caught a whale, or at least a really, really big bit of driftwood.
After a bit of a struggle, we realized we'd caught the world's biggest eel.
I kid you not - it was massive!
Then came the problem of what to do now... we all had our swiss army knives at the ready and well .... to cut a long story short, our prize winning eel ended up at Baz & Jontein's for wood smoking!
The river was at the heart of all our adventures and led us to learn about ourselves and experience life.
Just accross the road from here is where I feel part of Eli's and all us valley kids spirits reside.
This place is what we called the Bamboo Forest.
We created a world of our own within it, the bamboo was so thick we were able to run and jump on it and glide from one section to the next, ..... kind of like crouching tiger, hidden dragon style.
We were able to dig the sand and build cubby houses underneath the canopy.
We made spears with the bamboo and pole vaulted across the river to another cubby house.
We had them all over the valley and as we grew up these cubby houses turned more into secret hideouts .... I'll leave that to your imagination!
WHALE ROCK..... SCHOOL CONCERTS IN THIS HALL .... THE BIKE TRACK . RUNNING A
MUCK AT SHAHAZADA .... THE BIG JUMP ROCK ..... THE FUNKY DUDES .......PLAYING
MUSIC ..... BUSKING AT THE PUB .. ROLLERBLADING ... JUMPING ON THE TRAMPOLINE
... STAYING OVER AT EACH OTHERS HOUSES ENDLESSLY AND CREATING MEMORIES THAT
WE'LL TREASURE ALWAYS & NEVER EVER FORGET ..............