The Most Heartbreaking Part: A Yolngu Funeral | Homeland Dreaming Ep. 11

When people ask me what’s the most challenging part of remote living, I say it’s the deaths. We have lost too many of our Yolngu family in too short a time. My brain struggles to cope as much as my heart and it really thinks some times that certain people are still living, frozen in my memory is the last “Nhäma yalala“ (see-you-later) exchanged. When I’m off-island, my prayers include, “Lord, please let there be no one for me to visit in the hospital“. Not that I don’t like to visit, but it shouldn’t be normal for too many loved ones to be in hospital for various reasons, often chronic diseases. This has been the hardest video to make, unsure of how to tell the story and honour my Yolngu family who have taught me community in grief, grace in grief, hope in grief. If you grieve today, please feel my hand reaching out to you. We are here for you. And perhaps we understand more than most. Ceremony captured shared with permission from Old Man, Daymangu