By Alida Chay - Year 11, St Peter's College
Thank you all for being able to attend the funeral of Mariette Cormack - a burning flame that many of you witnessed slowly self-extinguish.
I wasn't one of you. I've barely seen her since we finished secondary school.
But the memories we created within that time shall stay with me long after she is laid in the earth below.
When I first met Mariette, it was because my mother told me to sit by her.
She was sitting on the trampoline by herself, plaiting her brunette hair into a French braid.
We had painting that afternoon. Our little fingers dotted yellow daisies on each other's cheeks and big purple hearts on our foreheads.
She got paint all over her baby blue dress and I got it all over my jeans and T-shirt.
Our parents weren't happy, I'm sure! But surely they knew that it was the start of a bond that would last through our education.
Mariette is probably already turning over in her coffin, listening to me speak to you all.
She was a brilliant public speaker and always wanted the last word.
The only thing sharper than her eye for detail was her wit. The only thing quicker than her braiding skills was her tongue.
I used to listen to her practise in her room. Whenever she spoke, even the falling autumn leaves seemed to listen.
She was always speaking for conferences and meetings, so I ended up staying over almost every day.
We'd have bowls of sweeties and big red cups of Sprite, and just talk and talk when she finished.
We'd joke about how one day we'd become supermodels, and post pictures of ourselves in bikinis and stilettos on each other's social media, trying to cultivate the most ``likes'' for bragging rights.
It seems now like the girl in those pictures with me was someone else entirely.
Our joint favourite memory is definitely the Dress as a Superhero Day.
I saw the reminder in the notices at school and raced to her place to tell her because she was sick that day.
We decided she would be Wonder Woman and I would be the Wondrous Assistant.
Mum agreed to help us make the costumes - from hand, too!
We won the collective prize of Best Dressed Power Duo, but I think the real prize was a memory we'd forever cherish.
The day we finished secondary school, Mariette gave me a present.
This wasn't a big surprise. Gifts seemed as natural to her as breathing.
But what was different was that it was big - big as in larger-than-my-face.
And when I opened it, it was a big book.
Inside that big book were hundreds of photos of us together. The purple hearts, the weekend sleepovers, the teenage double dates and the dress-up day.
Her voice cracked as she whispered to me before disappearing into the crowd. ``Let's go like heroes.''
Unfortunately, we didn't keep in contact much during my time in university.
During the weekends, we'd email each other everything that had happened during the week, but we never really kept in touch from Monday to Friday.
So when she arranged a meet-up three years later at our favourite cafe, I was absolutely ecstatic and bulldozed my schedule.
I was sitting fidgeting at the table, waiting for the beaming brunette with her French braid and bouncing steps.
I found the French braid and the smile, but the person ... Oh, the person didn't match at all.
She was swathed in heavy clothes that loosely swung from her body and her feet dragged across the ground. She smiled, but it was so hollow. Nothing like our pictures.
I didn't see her again until her mother emailed me, notifying me of her passing, and asking if I would help her go through Mariette's stuff.
I collected anything that was of value from our undying friendship, and burned anything that reminded me of her sickly frame - the dozens of fitness magazines, the laxatives, the cotton balls.
Then her mother took me to the funeral home.
The person lying in the coffin wasn't her. It was a disease. A disease that had personified itself in her.
We tried our hardest to make her beautiful for this moment. We braided her falling hair carefully and cleaned her body.
I dressed her in the Wonder Woman costume she kept in her top drawer.
It was too big, but neither of us were bothered by the ill fit. The memories were there and I wanted her to take them to wherever she was going.
And today, I want you to know that there's one thing the disease didn't kill - her spirit.
Even in her weekend emails, I could tell she was still there.
All the emojis, the bad spelling and the exaggerated stories of birds pooping on people - she was still there.
She is still here, watching over us, laughing and clapping us on the back and urging us to live in her stead.
Sure, she got some things wrong, but she never dwelled on bad speeches or slips of the tongue.
She moved on and I bet she wants us to, too.
Thank you all very, very much for coming. Mariette would appreciate it.
