The funeral was on Saturday. It was held at Robert Blackwood Hall at Monash – and the auditorium was just about full – and it holds a bit over 1,200 people – which was enough to totally overwhelm her family. They thought it would be big, but there were wide eyes!
There were lots of familiar faces – and every one of them wished that there was catching up being done over better events. The standard greeting of “How are you?” was constantly postfixed with, “well, apart from”.
but there was laughter and tears – and stuff that was just sooo Becky it couldn’t be anyone else.
(these people left notes after they found my blog entry – it just took me a while to moderate due to the horrible thing that is comment spam.):
miranda
jess
Therase Weeks
ella fortin
Anonymous
thanks for your words.
I will write more over the coming days – there is so much to do and so little time.
Rebecca Tomilson – you will always be missed.
hey,
i commented earlier.
i’m trying to figure out if we’ve met.. ie. who you are.
i’m an old mckinnon friend of beckys,
anyway, glad you could make the service, my family back in aus were all there and the order of service has been sent to me.
ok.
m.
hey. i’m dave, a friend of becky’s from canada before she moved to Australia. just thought I’d google her name and your site came up. yeah. sorry, my condolances. i’ll miss becky too. she stopped by on her whirlwind tour here in the summer, and it was good to see her. heh. good to know there was a nice turnout. well, not sure what else to say, so, see ya.
beqi will be sadly missed. its a month now, give or take a few days, and it aint feeling any better, believe me. dave, we met in canada when i was over there mid year last year with her – strange to find your name in cyberspace. Who is the moderator of this site? do i know you too?
Hey Becki,
Still think about you.
a lot.
Jx.
Becky was my sort of house mate in canada at TH 87. I took her old room and she left a lovely little note for me when I moved in. It was a very note-oriented household… Always the lovely ones from becky to cheer you up! She had such a profound impact on my life. I still think about her. I met james too, you stayed at our place. I always wonder what happened to her. It’s still unresolved for me. We spoke shortly before her passing on the phone… I sent her a silly red necklace for fun just before. Her parents must have gotten it when she was already gone. That breaks my heart to think about…
Hey Beq
I’m thinkin of you. I’m living life for you, in remembrance of you. What wouldn’t give to see you again.
Beqi is and will always be one of the most treasured, admired, respected person in my life, as I am sure in the lives of many others, because of how remarkable she was, how amazing a friend she was, and how much she helped others. I live my life each day in memory of her.
Some of you may have known that Becky’s Dad was ill with cancer this past year. I am one of his friends from Canada and just found out that he passed away Apr 3 2007. This has been very hard on the survivors – Becky’s mom and sister.
Edward, this is indeed very sad news. I’m sure everybody’s thoughts are with them.
Just wanted to say Becky was an awesome friend and the one who taught me how to be a free spirit. She helped me get through 98 when I had to come back and finish year 12 at McKinnon. Always the shoulder for someone else to lean on, wish I could have been there for you in your darkest hour Bec. Peace be with you and may we meet again some day.
So, I’m sitting here in the middle of Germany on a sunny afternoon and my thoughts turned to Becky. I think of her radiance and – like many others – have missed her these years gone by. Becky was so wise. I am so sorry to hear her dad was so ill and has passed away. Peace be with all.
Is this Becky Tomilson from Edmonton, who moved to Melbourne in 1995 and went to McKinnon high school? With unreasonable amounts of red hair?
I just found some old letters from Becky. I hadn’t heard from her since 2000 or so, so I thought I’d see if I could track her down on the internet, and see what she’s up to. If this is indeed her – and who else could it be? – I am stunned and terribly saddened. If it’s not too terrible to ask, what happened? Becky was such a vibrant and funny and intelligent girl, and I missed her a lot when she moved away. These letters are wonderful! She drew me sketches of her school uniforms, complete with commentary, and made (gentle) fun of Australians for thinking 11C was cold…
It is – I was at McKinnon when Becky was – and I can totally hear the gentle fun of us for thinking 11C was cold (for the record: it is :)
I have to say I laughed out loud when I read “unreasonable amounts of red hair” as that is totally accurate – and as one of the other redhads at the school over the years, I can certainly say she helped contribute a lot to the “redheads are awesome” cause.
I find it amazing how many people from all over the world have found my small notes here and have shared part of their stories. It seems no matter when or for how long any of us knew her, she is sorely missed.
Thank you for writing back. Oh, this is such sad news! I still have the package of Coffeemate that we put aside in 1995 when she left. We promised that we would meet again and eat the Coffeemate, for surely it would be thoroughly unchanged in its evilness no matter how long it had been. But I’m not sure fifteen-year-old acetylated tartaric acid esters of mono- and di-glycerides count as an exception to the “can’t take it with you” rule.
It seems your blog post here is her only online obituary. I’ve been unable to find anything else. But I’m not surprised so many people have found it. Indeed, who could forget her? I thought of her only a few days ago when I watched a cellist with excellent hair of a different sort, and thought that this was perhaps a general trend. And wondered what she was up to and how she was.
I have no idea what Coffeemate is, but I’m sure it’s wonderfully evil in some odd way.
I had hoped that something else had come up online, but it’s possible it hasn’t… there wasn’t really a give-everything-about-your-life-to-facebook thing then….
and yes, it is sad. Much time has passed, and it’s still sad.
It’s artificial coffee creamer. Just the kind of thing one should eat right out of the package.
oh my, I was afraid of that. I’ve probably seen it somewhere around US airports or flights or something like that. I can completely believe it hasn’t changed in the past 17 years though :)
Knew Becky while in post secondary school and she was actually the few people I actually got to know ! Since I am so shy. To me it was really really sad to hear the very unexpected news. I mainly think so since I believe that suicide is really really sad. And, as I learned on this rare occasion in life, (at least in my own life), this happens to persons when it is not expected.
I am so sad to hear about the passing of Beqi’s Dad. I found pictures of her from our times at university in some old boxes and I wanted to send them to him. I only had his email address when he sent me a copy of the order of service from her funeral. I was wondering if anyone had her sister or mother contact information?