I don’t know the perfect words and I don’t know what anyone else should say at their daughter’s funeral. I do know this will probably be the hardest thing you ever write, you ever say and if you ever have to speak at your child’s funeral, I hold you in my heart. Here is what I said on that unimaginable day… It felt good to be honest and share what was on my mind.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for the huge amount of support we have had the last week. There are so many people I want to thank, but you all deserve a mention. I know none of us know what to say, but you have been perfect. Please don’t stop. The only wrong thing to say is nothing.
On the 24th of May 2010, my life changed massively when I woke up with this feeling that a huge wave was passing over me and jumped out of bed. Thankfully, because my waters were breaking and Soraya was on her way to be born a few hours later on the 25th.
I was only 37 weeks, but she showed me right from the beginning that I was no longer in charge.
She was so so beautiful, the best looking newborn I had ever seen. She didn’t have her signature red hair yet because she didn’t have hair, but she had ginger eyebrows.
She was only 2.7kg and so little – at least for a little while. By 6 months old, she was hitting 10 kilos and by 2, she had grown out of all the baby car seats. She always stood out which she loved when she was little but it was problematic when she hit school.
I couldn’t take her out of the house as a baby/young toddler without random people stopping us to comment on her beautiful hair.
She always had the stereotypical redhead fiery emotions, seemed to feel pain more and was just her. Her unusual name and bright red hair perfectly matched her big personality. She was the centre of the room, our lives, everything.
She was such a confident little kid. She made friends easily, loved travelling with us and embraced the year we spent living in Penang before she started school. I think that will always be the best year of my life. We had so many good times especially living in an environment where we never had to cook or clean. It left so much time to just be together.
She spent basically all that year and the year before dressing as Ana from Frozen. After that, she wanted to be a fashion influencer or designer, but then she discovered she didn’t have the patience for sewing.
Next it was big bows, Jojo Siwa style.
She loved younger kids so much. I was always so glad that she was my first born as she was so good with her brothers (and any other little kid she came across). She spent years begging for a baby sister as well and was so happy she had her Bubba which is how she referred to J.
She absolutely loved that J was into dance too and helped and encouraged him as much as she could. I was worried last year when success came to J much easier than it did for her, but she was just so happy for her brother and loved being involved in all his competitions and classes. I’m not the best dance mum and she filled in the gap.
She loved nothing more than starting the day with a hug from me or Josh or looking at old baby photos of herself. She would have loved the slide show coming up.
She was just so kind and couldn’t understand why that kindness didn’t always get returned to her. She would write us notes, make sure we were ok and was very maternal.
All she wanted was to be liked by everyone and somehow that seemed to alienate many of her peers.
Too many times, she’d be the only kid not invited to a party or left out of an activity. Its just so mean.
She finally had a solid group of friends at school and dancing and I was so hopeful that things were going to get easier for her.
I thought she told me everything. I would often say to my friends that she told me too much as I really didn’t want to know some of the things she would tell me about what other kids her age were up to. I think she liked shocking me.
But she didn’t tell me the one thing I needed to hear. I wish so much she had told me how dark life had become for her. And I wish I hadn’t dismissed the other ways she told me.
I was so lucky I had Soraya for 14 years, 8 months and 24 days. I’m thankful for every moment, but I wanted so much more. I wanted to see her become a pediatric nurse, move into East Brunswick Village and have a daughter called Orchid like she wanted. She was just so capable, such a go-getter and everything she did, she did 100%. She could have achieved anything.
I look around and am so thankful for the love that surrounds us today. I wish Soraya could see it. She loved seeing family so much and would have loved having everyone together. I wish it didn’t take this to make it happen.
Just a year and a half ago, on her 13th birthday, she didn’t want to have any type of celebration because she didn’t think anyone would come. And sadly that was family as well as friends. And there was some truth to that.
I’m bitter about the kids who bullied her, the kids who were complicit in her bullying, the kids who watched it happen, who told people she was a snitch and ostracised her when she told us what was happening. Of the teachers and parents that let her get bullied at her first school and didn’t think it was a big deal or that we should even be told when kids bit, kicked or hit her.
I’m frustrated she was attracted to tricky friendships with so many ups and downs, and I couldn’t help her navigate being a teen girl better. I hate the mental health system that takes so long to help and then it’s too little, too late.
I’m angry at covid, Google, inflation and interest rates that made me work so much and stop doing the little things like playing Roblox with her, watching shows and the many other ways we used to spend life together that stopped the last year and a half.
Our family was in crisis, especially in the last month. I was too overwhelmed to ask for help and didn’t even know how to.
We have been so used to raising the kids alone that there didn’t seem like an alternative. I wish I knew how much you were all here for me, and I wish more people had stepped up.
There are so many regrets. Of things we should have done, of special moments we should have had. Of all the little things we could have done that may have lead to her giving life another chance. I mostly wrote this in her room where I could feel her presence and I wish I had spent this long just sitting and being with her just one week ago.
I wish our love had been greater than her pain.
I lost my dad when I was not much older than Soraya in a stupid, sudden accident so i already knew to live life to the full, to embrace every moment and that things can change in an instant when you don’t expect it to. But the financial pressures of the last year and a half had stopped me living my life like that.
Please don’t wait to learn the hard way. Don’t put off the good times, of spending little special moments with your kids.
And just be kind, like Soraya would be. Especially the young people here. Just love each other. Life’s too short.
Goodbye my Soraya Bear. You’ll always have my heart.
At the time I wrote this, Soraya had just died. I didn’t have her medical records yet so didn’t understand how she (and we) had been failed.
