Peter passed peacefully on the 18th of June 2017. This is the eulogy I wrote for his funeral:
Peter’s niece Kveta and the portrait she painted for him
Peter was born in 1930, in a copper mining camp in Tasmania, in one of only 6 wooden houses on a platform built into the side of a mountain. The nearest town was Rosebery. There were no roads leading from the camp into town, so when Margaret went into labour with Peter, her husband Arthur had to run a good long way into town to fetch the doctor, along a dirt track beside a steep ravine. It was pouring rain and he had to use a lantern to light his way in the dark. Peter Evans had a two year old brother named David, and four year old sister called Anne. Margaret umpired hockey games in her spare time, blowing her whistle and running back and forth in a sea of mud covered in handfuls of snow, while Peter watched from his pram, and Anne and David chased each other over the seats.
When Peter was two years old, the Evans family moved back to Melbourne from whence they’d come, eventually settling near Kew Junction, a busy Melbourne intersection. Peter had an adventurous spirit, even at this age, and was renowned for wandering off. One day, when he was three years old, the entire family set out in search of him, calling his name. They found one of his shoes in the middle of the busy intersection, and they went into every shop along the street, asking “Have you seen a little red-haired boy?” Eventually they found him in the barber’s shop, sucking on a lollypop and getting his hair cut. Continue reading
In 2013 I went on a wildflower spirit journey through Kakadu and almost didn’t make it back alive. For a while, writing the story was good medicine. That was, until I got to the part of the story where we were about to climb down off the escarpment onto the cliff face. The writing stalled for a year and just recently I’ve been re-reading, editing and reflecting on what I had written. The fact that I’ve been able to read it without nightmares makes me think I’m ready to pick up where I left off, but I can feel myself skittering around it nervously, so I’m backing off and looking for safe ways to re-enter.
