For Natasha Jones: ‘Such a beauty, such zest for life’, by Riley Jones - 2019

4 December 2019, Memo Music Hall, Melbourne, Australia

Some of you might think of me as a funny bugger, and may have even seen speak at Natasha’s Dad’s funeral back in 2015, where I managed to sneak in some Slovenian swear words and get some laughs. I’m not sure I can manage that today, though.

I’ve actually been dreading this for a long time. Basically, since the day that Natasha received her terribly cruel diagnosis, and if not that exact day then definitely that first week, I’ve lain awake at night, time and time again, wondering about what I might say at her funeral should she pass away. And now here we are, a little over 15 months later.

My thoughts ran the gamut from just angry ranting, to hysterical crying, to just focussing on the positives, to everything in between. I think today we’ll get a mix of all of those.

I should start by saying that we shouldn’t be here. She was only 43.

And apologies in advance to anyone who has survived cancer or who is even just over the age of 43, because I keep thinking: why do you get to live and she didn’t? And that includes me, I’m the sweet age of 46. Here’s an actual example of this thought process from yesterday: why is Moby alive? Nothing against him, by why him and not Natasha? I know Tash wouldn’t want me to feel like that, but she was much nicer and better than I. It’s just not fair. She should still be alive.

But her cancer was horrible, more horrible than I think we realised. In retrospect, I can now see that this was almost a certainty to happen, but we tried to keep hope alive, to try to ensure that she could be with us for as long as possible. And as it turned out, that was nowhere near as long as we expected. None of us, not her, I don’t think even her medical team, expected her to go last Tuesday. Only two days beforehand, on the Sunday, she’d told me that she wasn’t going to die this year.

But it looks like it WAS her time to go, and as I’ve noted in a pretty distressing post on the Tash Tribe on Facebook, she went relatively peacefully, probably unaware of my desperate attempts to revive her. And many people have reassured me that, if she had to choose a way to go, as opposed to the timing, it was almost perfect. She was in her bed, having just had her first shower in days, warm under a blanket in her dressing gown with the love of her life looking over her, caring for her. Her last words were in response to Declan saying “I love you”, and she whispered back “I love you, too”.

And then a few minutes later, she was gone, and all of a sudden, it was just me and the kids left. I must say that, if I didn’t have the kids, I don’t know what I’d do, because there’s a big Natasha-shaped hole in my life, that can never be filled. I’m so lost. I keep wanting to tell her stuff, or watch a TV show with her, and then remember that I can’t. I still can’t believe she’s gone and I bawl my eyes out every day. And it’s only been a week. How can I do this for the rest of my life?

A life that used to be pretty great – only a year and a half ago – and which is now just miserable.
But, there is some light, because Natasha gave me you three beautiful creatures. And even with that, it seems like she was planning ahead and looking after me – which is very Tash. Y’all may not know this, but Xander has been comforting me, quickly coming over and giving me a hug whenever he sees me tearing up, and Elektra and Declan have been wonderful as well. But it’s my job to look after you guys, and that’s what I’ll do. I just worry I’m not going to be as good at it as she was, or anything else she did for that matter. But there are a lot of people in this room who have offered to help me, too.

SO, apart from my kids, I struggle to find any positives in this, but here goes.

The main positive is – she’s no longer in pain. Ever since the chemotherapy started, she required pain medication, and the pain only got worse towards the end. She was willing to endure it to be with her family as long as possible, but now, thankfully, she’s no longer suffering.

Another weird positive is that, once she was diagnosed, I had to step up and do all of the things she used to do, which was an astounding amount. And taking the kids to their dermatologist one day led to discovering that I had a small skin cancer in my scalp – it was benign, but could have got a lot worse. If Tash hadn’t been diagnosed, I wouldn’t have gone to that appointment, and I wouldn’t have had that skin cancer cut out, and then who knows.

Also, thanks to her diagnosis and treatment, I got to spend pretty much every minute of every day for the last 15 months with her, and a lot of time with the kids, too. Much more intense time than we would have had otherwise. And I must thank my work colleagues for being so flexible with us and giving me that opportunity – I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.

And that brings me to another positive, not of her death, but her life - we all got to be with her at some point during her 43 years on this planet. And I think we can all agree that makes us very lucky, because she was amazing.

I guess that makes me even luckier than most, as I was with this incredible woman for 23 years – half of my life, and more than half of hers.

For those of you who don’t know the story, Natasha and I got together 23 years ago in around November 1996. We had passed each other on the stairs in the Union Building at Monash Uni, our eyes had met, and we knew straight away there was a connection. We later chatted at a Union Night, trying to work out if we’d met before, but there was nothing we could pin down, so it just must have been destiny.

And then Natasha introduced me to her friend, Jade, and Jade told us that she had actually had to pull us apart at the Chocolate Ball at the Palace, here in St Kilda, many months before. So it was either destiny, or a drunken pash that neither of us remembered, but it turned out that we had fortuitously each found our respective soul-mate.

She was my wife, lover, travel companion, fellow music aficionado, partner in all things and, most of all, my best friend. We did pretty much everything together and I can confidently say that pretty much every good thing I’ve ever done and every good memory I have – she was there.

I loved everything about her – the obvious stuff that you all loved – her kindness, her smile, her thoughtfulness and generosity. But I also loved weird stuff – I loved her taste and her smell. She used to complain sometimes that she hadn’t had a shower and thus would smell, and I honestly told her numerous times that she had never smelt, never had an unpleasant odour, EVER. I meant that very seriously. It’s a pity the feeling was not mutual… (Let’s just say that she didn’t think my natural, aluminium-free deodorant from Byron Bay was very effective.)

Another thing I loved: her voice. Not just her singing voice which some of you may have heard – she sang like an angel. But her regular voice – I told her that I loved listening to voicemail messages she left, because hearing her voice just gave me a little thrill.

And I loved her feet. Not in a fetish-y way. But her nerves were a bit damaged from the chemo, and something she really appreciated was her feet being rubbed. So I would volunteer every night to massage her feet, and she looked surprised every time, and then happily thrust her feet at me, nearly kicking me in the face, and I would massage her feet and calves for an hour while watching one of our many TV shows that we mutually loved. Because we didn’t have as much alone time together, it was something I looked forward to.

Also, she was super-hot, but we all know that.

Another thing we all know is that Natasha was the nicest person you could ever meet, and so thoughtful. Even when going through the worst things personally, she would think of others.

As a very weird example, she kept suggesting women I could be with after she died, who would be good for me and the kids, and maybe even put up with my comic book movies. Some of her suggestions are in this very room! But I had to beg her to stop thinking like that, and pimping me out to her friends – I was married to her, and I didn’t want that to end, or to even have to think about it. But she was still just trying to look after me.

In that respect, the timing of her passing also seems like she planned it. In particular, she completed her magnus opus – the renovation of our house. She had been driving that for almost two years – getting permits and dealing with heritage issues and so forth, so when she was first diagnosed she asked me, if she died, would I complete the renovation. And I said “no”, because I’m an idiot. But she just went “Right!”, and decided to get it done. And for most of the last year, while she was dealing with everything else, we’ve been living in our partially renovated home. But it was finally completed so that we were able to move back in in late in October. And she loved it, and got to enjoy it for her last month, referring to it as her legacy, while snidely remarking that my next wife had better appreciate it.

She also stuck around just long enough to teach me most of what she knew about running the house and raising our three beautiful kids.

The first day that I drove the kids to a school thing after last Tuesday, Xander said to me “Dad – it’s lucky we’re all so used to you doing this for us”.

So that’s small comfort, but more importantly, the kids also got to have the best Mum ever. She devoted herself utterly to them. She fought tooth and nail to get them into their school, to help them with any health or other issues, to encourage them and drive them to whatever activities they were interested in. She was so proud of you all, even though she might ask you to play outside, or clean up your pig-sty room, you were still her pride and joy. OUR pride and joy. You three are truly greater than the sum of your parts – you’re like Mum, you’re like me, and ultimately you’ll be better than both of us.

There are so many other things I’d like to talk about, if I could go all day. Her love of books and the fact that we were hoping to one day to open a book bar for her to run. Her love of photography – she was so talented. Her love of travel, of course – she’d famously been to 56 countries. Her connection to Slovenia and Australia’s Slovenia: Tasmania. I hope she would appreciate that her coffin is hand-crafted Tasmanian Blackwood. Her dog, Indy, who gave her so much joy. And, of course, her many, many friends. She has SO many friends, and many of them have written very touching tributes to her online and on Facebook. A common thread with all of them is that Natasha made everyone she spoke to, everyone she dealt with, feel special. Because she thought you were special.

So when it came to organising today, I honestly found it too hard to pick even a few friends to speak – it would just always leave someone out, some group out, which is why I basically just went with Myshell to talk about Natasha pre-Riley, and me to try to cover everything post-Riley. But know that she loved you all, individually, and cherished the time she spent with each and every one of you.

Everything about this has been hard, so I want to just quickly thank some people who have helped me and our family through this. (I then went into some personal thank-yous...)

And that brings me to possibly the hardest thing about this service: choosing photos for the upcoming Tribute. How could I fit her life into 80 photos? She’s in so many AND looks great in all them. In the end, I just had to pick a selection from the ones already on my computer, so I know it’s not representative of her whole life. There are numerous trips around the world that are completely missed. But fortunately the booklets you’ve received today include some of those photos plus many others.

Also, I deliberately chose not to have any photos from the last month and a half, when she really started deteriorating.

These photos remind us of Tash in her prime. Such a beauty, such zest for life. A shining star.
I also want to explain the two songs accompanying this Photo Tribute. They’re both by Biffy Clyro, a band Natasha and I saw many times and which we even managed to take the kids to, back in 2014. The first song is called Folding Stars, and it was written by the lead singer when his mother, Eleanor, lost her battle with cancer. It’s very on point and will likely make you cry. The second song is Mountains. This song is a bit more uplifting, but also has a special connection to me and Tash. She bought this picture here for my birthday a few years ago, with some of the beautiful lyrics from Mountains on it. “Nothing lasts forever, except you and me. You are my mountain, you are my sea. Love can last forever, between you and me. You are my mountain, you are my sea.”

For Allan Zavod: 'Dad inspired us to be reckless and excited and fun and daring and part of the world', by Zak Zavod - 2016

4 December 2016, Melbourne, Australia

My dad led a remarkable life and was a remarkable man. And that is what we remember today. There is the pain of loosing him. And it runs deep. But there is also the joy of celebration in his life that was. He, in his abundance of love, touched many people, not least of us his family, but also beyond and into the community; here in Australia and forth into the larger world.

His roots started here in Melbourne, studying at "The Con" and playing here joyfully with school friends and music veterans alike. He then travelled for study at Berkeley and landing in the American 70's, immersing himself in slick Jazz and piping hot rock 'n roll. He thrived in the madness and challenge of it all and went on to collaborate and tour with some of the world’s musical greats including Jean Luc Ponte, Maynard Furgueson and Frank Zappa. But to speak plainly, I think one of the most significant musical experiences of his life happened relatively recently. Certainly the one I was most privy to. The Melbourne Symphony orchestra performed Dad's Environmental Symphony and I shared first hand in what it meant to him. To share his work with his home city and to have it received in such a way. To have the opportunity to share it with his beloved home community and to have people on their feet cheering and feeling. It was an experience that moved him as he moved others. We stood in the wings as the performance came to an end, as the final bars were played, and as the audience rose to their feet and as the energy in the room cracked and as the smiles on the orchestra members’ faces gleamed; and he turned to me and said "...you know... this is what I've always wanted." I knew at that moment that even though he was aware he might be leaving this world, he also knew he'd done things that he was mighty thrilled to have done, and even though he could have done them for another 100 years, if his time had to be now, he could be at peace with that. And I think we can take his lead on that one.

Dad's family of course was his pride and joy. The gem of seeing him smile in contentment at simply having the family together for a meal; indulging in that most basic and gracious of pleasures; food and chosen company. And well, he chose none to be closer than his family.

My Grandfather Eddy, who took hold of his artistic gene and grew it throughout the generations to Dad, and to me and to my daughter. My father and he bonded especially deeply in grandpa's twilight years where they spent many hours together speaking of the past, and of the future. Healing and sharing. Musically they shared a unique and vibrant bond through their careers and in these later years, dad and grandpa still played together often and dad encouraged him to keep performing all the way through his difficulties with Parkinson's. And so their musical joy kept on flowing.

His darling mother Anne, still here with us today. He was the light of her life, and continues to illuminate it even if now a little dimmed. He spoke often of his memories of a wonderful childhood in which he always felt nurtured and loved. And it was clear that his mother was a beautiful guiding soul to him, who protected him, and celebrated him.

My mum Christine, and dad, were soulmates. It’s hard to elaborate on what this meant to them. I perhaps am the one who knows most being their only offspring and having been present for so much of their love-filled lives together. We are all at loss without him. But perhaps no more than his angel partner, my mother. The passion they shared and the love and joy that blossomed between them and stretched its great boughs out over our heads and sheltered me from the dark, and inspired us to be reckless and excited and fun and daring and part of the world. That is quiet now and remains on in our hearts and in my mother. She can now carry that beacon for us. We all will a little. But his joy touched her in a unique way, as did hers touch him. And that is a torch that endures beyond death. For it is eternal.

As for me. There is not a great deal to say really. He is my Dad. He is the man who thought me to love. And I'll miss him, and he knows it. And I feel him with me. And it's ok. And it hurts very badly. But he is the one who taught me not just to love people, who are here, for a time, but that they also must leave. He taught and inspired me to love life, and living. And that is what we are left with. Thank you.