Dear annon. I hear you & I see you. I have said this many times & i will continue to shout it to our anti vaxxer friends. I had a child who died at 3 days of age of pregnancy related complications. I will never see that boy grow up to be the man he could have been, nor will I ever get to do the simplest of mothering tasks for him. The best I could do was deliver a eulogy to a tiny casket. My subsequent child has been diagnosed with ASD. He is challenging. He is beautiful. He is smart. He is exhausting.

As always Bec you have simply, beautifully and wholeheartedly captured exactly what I want to say about being a part of this shitty club. My son was born nearly four years ago now and lived for three days before he died in the NICU. I don't often find myself sobbing in the shower anymore, well lets say it doesn't come as readily as it did four years ago and so I am 'looking forward' to seeing this movie tonight for that very reason. If something can connect me back to that moment and thus my little man then I will gladly transport myself back there. That grief is so powerful and when you are in the midst of it you cant imagine how you will ever breathe in and out again or that some day you may come to miss being completely overwhelmed by it. Like you I have found joy again albeit always tinged with something that certainly didn't exist before my son died, but to feel sad again and just be able to sit with that & think about our babies uninterrupted for an hour or so is well worth the price of admission.

Thank you guest. What a lovely reply. It was a truly inspiring day & I am so lucky to have been there. I hope we can make the change in this country that so desperately needs to come.
Thank you beckala as well.
As for my name Anon it is a mixture of my first initial & my surname, not as a flag waving demonstration of my Australian heritage. How fortunate that we live in a country where we bloody well can boo the current PM without fear of reprisal.
And again I would say, if you were there you would have seen just how moving and inspiring a day it was, with nothing but the utmost respect for the man we came to honour. So you're absolutely right it wasn't about me it was about Mr Whitlam because judging by the mood of the crowd (& with respect to Gough) nothing will save the current PM.

Were any of the people who are deriding those that booed actually at the memorial? I'm betting not because if you were you would have understood the mood of the crowd. I was there and let me tell you I was part of history.

The crowd was an amazing mix of people from all walks of life. There were those of us, like Cate Blanchett that were "but three (or younger) when he passed by" but who could not let the occasion go by without giving thanks to this man in a personal way. There were those that knew, as in really lived it, when the "its time" campaign successfully bought the great man to the job of PM. I have been told that people took to the streets of Balmain the night he took power to celebrate. There were people there that couldnt possibly know about Gough, except through the re-telling of folk lore through their parents or even grandparents. Some even in prams who wouldve had no idea why they were there at all, but one day they will be able to say "I was there". There were Aboriginal people there who chanted "always was, always will be Aboriginal land" something that Gough himself had said. And you know what? We were all united in one thing, to give thanks for this man and all that he had done to shape the modern landscape of Australia. Make no mistake this was not about party lines or political agenda, it was a genuine outpouring of emotion & love.

You know what else it was though? A mass of people deeply passionate about politics and sufficiently moved to express their outrage at the lack of direction, or worse still the divisive and terribly conservative direction of the current government, in the only way available to them. Yes we booed. And we booed not at Tony Abbott specifically, but at the lack of passion in politics overall and the whats in it for me attitude that seems to have enveloped our nation.

Gough wasnt afraid to have dangerous ideas. Gough was a man of vision that didnt rely on opinion polls to drive his policy making. Yes we booed. But we also cheered as Noel Pearson spoke of Gough's many, many achievements. No fault divorce. Yes! Universal free health care. Yes! Free tertiary education. Yes! Aboriginal land rights. Yes! Paid maternity leave for public servants. Yes! We sang along to Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody "From little things big things grow" as a reminder of how good politics can be when people have the courage to confront the moral issues of our time. We laughed when Goughs own son, joked about how Gough would have loved to have spoken on the day himself and we cried at the end because although we celebrated this wonderful public figure, it still signaled the death of a much loved father, husband, grandfather and great grandfather. No one thought this was a protest rally, it was exactly as a memorial should be, full of ALL the emotion that should be.

I can tell you NO ONE booed the official mourners of the proceedings and by that I mean Mr Whitlams family and close friends. Everyone was incredibly respectful of the fact that there was a public man and a personal man and although we all only knew the public man there was still a family grieving the loss of the personal.

So to those that were there with me I say thank you for restoring my faith in the Australian public, that all hope is not lost and that given the right motivation we arent all racist and lacking in compassion for our fellow man - yes including refugees. We are passionate and caring and proud and just hoping for a time when politics once again becomes about thinking about ALL people and not just about gaining government and getting what we individually can out of it. A simpler time maybe but a time where ideas were possible.

And to those that say we are uncouth and inappropriate every ounce of my being wants to say Were you there? Did you feel the spirit of this great man and his people? But uncouth or not i'm just going to say "booooooo!". Gough being a lover of the Arts would've enjoyed the theatre of that.
Vale Mr Whitlam. Thank you and like Cate said "I shall be grateful till the day I die"