Obituary by Paul Amy
KNOWING cancer would eventually get the better of her, Bev White
arranged her own funeral.
She selected three songs for the service, two readings (John
3:16, Revelations 13:14) and a Banjo Paterson poem (``when we come to the final
change, we shall meet with our loved ones gone before, to the beautiful country
over the range'').
Bev's final change
came on Good Friday. Last
Wednesday, hundreds of people attended her funeral, with some mourners
having to stand at the front of he Le Pine Chapel on Princes Highway in Dandenong. The foyer was well filled. The sporting clubs
and organisations White served so
faithfully were well represented: Dandenong West Football Club (coach Brendan Allen and many other players proudly wore the
club colours), Lyndale Cricket Club, the Southern Football League and the Dandenong and
District Cricket Association.
She was a life member of the football and cricket clubs, the
long-serving registrar of the SFL
(when everything was done manually) and secretary of the DDCA.
Celebrant Andrea McKay said White had a heart as big as the sporting ovals she attended,
and the only battle she lost was to the cancer that claimed her life, at 66.
It was diagnosed in
September, 2008, as she was preparing to tootle around Australia in
her caravan. How she had been looking forward to that journey.
Her last few months were spent at the home of friend Cindy White and her family at Narre Warren. They dropped everything to care for her.
McKay called Bev
White an independent, strong,
occasionally stubborn woman whose great loves were her son, Stephen, her family
and friends, supporting Collingwood, going for drives and eating McDonald's.
The celebrant related how Stephen had said his mother scored every game of cricket he played up to the age of 20.
Mother and son were
uncommonly close. Bev White married and lived in Wales for more than 10 years, returning to Dandenong to raise Stephen as a single
mum.
When he began playing
sport, she began helping around the
clubs, quietly and effectively. She made many friends along the way.
After last Wednesday's service mourners formed a guard
of honour for the departing hearse.
Soon after a black Commodore cruised past with a McDonald's
bag protruding from the front passenger door. Alerted to it, the young chap in the car took
a casual look and decided to let it be. Bev White would have liked
that.
*Dandenong and Cerberus football clubs will play for the Bev White
Trophy at Newcomen Rd, Springvale, on Thursday,
April 22. Cerberus made her an honorary life member in recognition of her
work to have it affiliated with the
Southern League.