Today we are celebrating Skye’s life and I want to share with you some of Skye’s story. She’s fit a lot into her 27 years but I’ll do my best to keep it short and sweet.

Skye’s story really is a very special love story of a different kind.

Skye is the baby of our family, our little sister.

When Skye was born there was some discussion about what her name would be – I was not quiet 6 at the time and when I heard my parents where thinking of calling her Theresa, our mum’s name, I was incensed!

I couldn’t think of anything sillier. How could we tell them apart with the same name? – I felt adamant that she needed a name all of her own.

Skye was my vote and thankfully Mum & Dad liked it too. They decided on Skye as a middle name and much to my delight it was ‘Skye’ that stuck, a name as pretty and special as our precious little blond baby.

Skye was a happy healthy outgoing little girl. Spending most of her time playing with her big sister Emma, dancing, singing, fighting, riding bikes, doing calisthenics all the fun things kids do.

When Skye was in year three we moved to Owen & she and Emma attended Owen Primary school where they made lots of new local friends.

Skye was a very confident and capable student at school, she was very intelligent. Reading, writing and spelling were all a breeze for Skye.

One of the best things about our new tiny town of Owen, apart from the people was the Owen Swimming Pool. A beautiful oasis during the hot, dry, dusty country summers. We spent loads of time there; Skye used to swim all the time and was a beautiful little bronzed, blonde Aussie.

Skye also loved to listen to music. Em remembers her spending hours recording songs from the radio and I remember her happily singing with headphones on which was always entertaining because she did it with such gusto and yet sounded so bad at the same time 🙂 Skye and I share tone deafness as a special quirk.

Skye liked primary school, she liked the kids and she especially liked a certain cute boy or two in her time. Skye is a born romantic, always with her eye on someone special.

The few special boyfriends she had in her time were beautiful highlights of her life.

It wasn’t long after Skye started at Balaklava High School that she had the first symptoms of her illness.

Skye’s illness was rare, MELAS syndrome and it took the doctors a while to figure out what was causing our precious Skye so much trouble –

Seizures, severe headaches, chronic fatigue type symptoms – it was a lot. And when the doctors did uncover the cause the news was not good. An illness that can be treated but can’t yet be cured.

As much as humanly possible Skye took it all in her stride and got on with life – she continued at school through to year 11 and she continued to do what she could.

One of the things Skye loved was working with kids – she had hoped to be a childcare worker and did many hours volunteering with the kids at the Balaklava childcare centre.

Another of Skye’s passions was movies – she watched romantic comedies till they came out of her ears and she loved to rope us in to sit with her to watch her favourites. The big passionate kiss scenes where her fav, she loved it when boy met girl, sparks flew and they lived happily ever after.

As time went on Skye’s illness took a greater toll – it impaired her senses making hearing and seeing increasingly difficult.

After a few stroke like episodes her ability to walk and to speak also became impaired. Physically things just got harder for Skye.

But she refused to stop living – she kept on refocusing on what she could do. She liked colouring in and she especially loved 10 pin bowling something fun and social she could do in her wheelchair, and she was actually pretty good too getting a strike to two.

More than activities and interests though – what Skye lived for was her family. People were the most important part of Skye’s Life. People and her little dog Angel.

Skye lived for birthday’s and family functions. She LOVED to see everyone and keep abreast of family news. She was so happy and excited for every milestone in our family’s lives, Engagements, birthday’s, weddings, new babies – these were the things Skye revelled in.

Skye being maid of honour for my wedding, walking in high heels looking radiant and beautiful will be a memory I will treasure always. Thank you Skye.

Skye’s birthday was her favourite occasion, a birthday she shared with her favourite cousin Ryan. She counted down the days and weeks till her next birthday. She often organised with us sisters exactly what presents she’d like, which was helpful 🙂 She always wanted to do something special and fun with the whole family.

And as soon as April 29^th had been celebrated she’d start the countdown for her very next birthday!

In most recent times, due to her illness, Skye lost count of birthday’s – she forgot how old she was and skipped backward deciding she was 17. Which Em and I quickly decided was a wonderful calculation which puts us at 19 & 23 respectively. Ahhh forever young, thank you Skye.

Over time communicating became trickier for Skye as although she could still talk she couldn’t hear very well which made conversations a bit one sided. Luckily for us Skye choose to use the few words she spoke to tell us everything she liked about us, complimenting us on everything our hair, our clothes, our cars and even our pets.

But ultimately over the course of the last 6 months especially, Skye’s health really declined. She couldn’t walk and couldn’t hear, her eye sight diminished to the point there were times she didn’t recognise even her closest family.

Despite all that Skye still managed to refocus yet again on what really mattered most and every time we saw her, once she worked out who we were, she would tell us loud and clear that she loved us. She always told us, even when she had the strength for not much more – I love you.

Only about 10 weeks ago Skye went in for cataract eye surgery which was successful. It meant that in the time we had together she could see us. Even when her body was really packing up on her – she managed to make us feel loved and important – her eyes lit up whenever she saw us.

Skye’s spirit was strong and willing, an amazing, determined, beautiful and loving human being. But in the end her body was spent.

We are all so grateful and honoured to have had Skye in our lives. We Skye’s siblings honour and thank our parents Pete & Therese for their amazing love and dedication in caring for Skye so diligently over all the years.

We hope that some of you here were lucky enough to get a glimpse of Skye’s amazing essence, an Inspiring, loving, courageous and beautiful young woman.

We invite you to join us in celebrating Skye and all the love she still brings.

To finish with a Maya Angelou quote “ I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.

Skye made me and those lucky enough to truly know her feel very special, important & loved.

We’re so grateful to have known you Skye and we love you always too.

Theresa Skye Goodes ~  “Skye”

29-04-1985 ~ 14-11-2012

until we meet again little sister I will hold you in my heart.