EULOGY FROM THE REQUIEM MASS FOR MURIEL ANN COSTELLO- JANUARY 8TH 2014
at Nazareth House Chapel, Wynnum North, Brisbane, Australia.
First Thank you all for being here, family, friends from near and far, Oblate Fathers Siebert, Twigg, Wotherspoon, Keelty, and Deacon Ross all assisting Father Henry, QLD Police Commissioner Stewart and Assistant Commissioners, Doctors from the Mater Hospital and Members of mum’s special Nazareth House family, sisters and staff,
Mums grave stone-right next to Suzie’s, her first born, will read
Muriel Ann Costello 1921-2014
The space between those 93 years will be so small compared to the gap in our lives that is so large. So we do our best to fill in the gap, as we always do, with stories.
So here is Mum’s story.
Mum is born in Port Talbot. October 14th 1921 in Old South Wales
Its cold and damp, the sky is grey, the river Afan flowing through the town is grey, and while there is a hint of green in the Taibach Rugby Grounds where her Dad played as a champion fly half, the air is choked with smoke, smoke fed by the chimneys of the relentless Steel Plant that is fired by the coal mined in the Valleys.
Mum decided early on that though she was born into this grey world, on a grey day, in a grey year still recovering from the Great War, that she would not accept Grey as her fate.
No.
She would live a larger life. And she would live it in Technicolor-from the size of her dreams to the bright colors of her dresses.