There is a Catholic tradition, based in sound theology, that Masses for the dead are purposed to praying for the soul of the deceased rather than engaging in a celebration of his or her life.

I will try to stick to the script, noting that our prayers will be most heartfelt when offered for a soul that we feel we know well:-

WEDNESDAY

“Bridget Louise Collits was born in Armidale, NSW, on January13, 1982. It was a Wednesday.

With all the love I can muster for our two sons, I have to say that the day of Bridget’s birth was the happiest of my life. No, we don’t have favourites. It was about her being my first born.

Bridget had a very happy childhood, as we settled in Sydney and raised a young family. She was especially safe in the care of St Agatha’s primary school in Pennant Hills, and she enjoyed her early education there immensely.

Things went badly wrong in Bridget’s teens, when she experienced bullying – of the kind in which some girls, sadly, excel – in secondary school, and became afflicted by demons. Perhaps in the manner of Mary Magdalene.

I am uncertain how the latter’s demons showed themselves. With Bridget, it was the terrible affliction of a catastrophic eating disorder. Again, she found safety in the care of a magnificent psychiatrist who gave her strategies for coping.

And, indeed, she prospered. If only the level of care and the sheer smarts of that doctor could have been replicated at her life’s end in Townsville.

One never quite escapes the clutches of mental health problems. The black dog is persistent, alas. You just learn to cope.

Bridget coped with the help of her family and her many friends. She found meaning in caring for, and caring about, God’s creatures, especially the four-legged variety.

She excelled in art and cooking and in her chosen profession of hospitality. She made her way in life. We had some wonderful times living together, just the three of us in Hervey Bay.

It was a kind of rescue mission on our part, as she had experienced some down times in Sydney as a young adult. It was a group house, full of joy and adult friendship.

To our regret, Bridget finally settled in a place a long way away from her family. We didn’t see nearly enough of her in recent years. We will probably never quite get over that.

Serious health problems eventually overtook both Bridget and her fiancé, Adam.

Bridget had met Adam in Hervey Bay, brought together in the hospitality industry for which they shared a deep passion. She became his carer – and undertook that role with great persistence, affection and fidelity.

Adam, the love of Bridget’s life, is with us in spirit today, and his deep grief we share at every level.

We still struggle to accept how that all panned out, in faraway North Queensland.

The last year has been a nightmare for Bridget and for us all.

How could one so very young suffer so much? Over the past six months, in particular, we witnessed pain and indignity beyond comprehension and yet we still hoped for a miracle.

And yet, often, while struggling for machine-generated breath, she still looked so well. And so peaceful.

Through the times in intensive care, we questioned medical decisions and approaches, and yet felt quite unable to alter the course of events as her condition worsened.

It was gut-wrenching, to say the very least. There were reprieves, and seeming emergent recoveries.

There was, for a time, even a brief glimmer of hope that she would have her much anticipated wedding. Even in the hospital, plans were being hatched. Then it all went disastrously wrong.

Oddly to us, some people at the hospital marvelled at our daily devotion to Bridget.

Really? Isn’t this what parents do?

As the actress Nicola Walker (as Cassie Stewart) said to her father in an episode of Unforgotten, after having delivered the news to a mother that her long-missing son’s remains had been discovered: “The mother said to me today, what’s the point of me?”

Nicola’s father replied: “I guess you look for meaning in other things.”

She then said: :”After our kids, the rest is just filling, isn’t it?”

Indeed, it is.

We only got through this awful time with the support of our nearest and dearest. Especially our sons, David and Chris, whose massive love for their ailing sister became abundantly apparent and, indeed, knew no bounds towards the end.

Their daily communications and prayers propped us up like the Israelites who supported the sagging arms of Moses at the Red Sea, and, literally, allowed us to go on.

Chris is in distant Germany, and, sadly cannot be here with us today.

We thank our sons from the bottom of our hearts, and we thank all those, too, who have been with us in spirit and prayer in our dark times. Many of you are here today.

We mustn’t get mired in a focus just on these last few months.

Hard as it is, we must look and reach back, past that recent nightmare, and remember better days. Wonderful times.

GAZE

We surely must fix our gaze on Bridget’s love for, and easy camaraderie with, her nieces and nephews.

On her trip to Europe to be with her beloved brother last August, when she was in reasonable health and experienced both excitement and joy.

In Munich, Vienna and Budapest. On her much-enjoyed outback travels. On her trip to the Big Apple a decade or so ago. On the love – yes, love – she experienced from her regulars at the various cafes at which she worked, in Sydney and much further afield. (Bridget touched hearts, deeply and effortlessly, during her every waking moment).

On her very special relationship with her beloved companion, Ella, who is now in our care. On her (alas, infrequent) highs when Balmain, then Wests Tigers, actually won a few games. When the mighty Blues have reigned (on rare occasions) over the northern enemy.

Yes, there were blessed times in her unfinished life. Many blessed times.

Just after Bridget died, I found myself staggering around the truly dreadful car park at Townsville Hospital, in a state of shock.

I came across a sticker on a car’s rear window that said, “I hope something good happens to you today”.

Well, I felt that that was just about the weirdest thing I could then be reading.

On reflection, though, something good did happen that day. Late morning, just about three hours before she passed, Bridget received, for the third or fourth time of late, the last rites of the Church.

The priest, inevitably of dark hue in the Diocese of Townsville, prayed that God would forgive our daughter of her sins.

Bridget, often seemingly weak in faith during her life, could probably hear what was being said, and, I pray, reached out to seek the Lord’s redemption.