BALI REMEMBERED: Memorial service in Coogee

A crowd of several hundred listened in silence at Coogee’s Dolphin Point to remember the victims, their families, the survivors and the doctors and other emergency workers who helped. Of the 88 Australians who died,  43 were from NSW and 20 from the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
During what was an emotional ceremony, Ryan James, who had been on a surfing holiday in Bali with his best friend Tom Singer, said that Tom had been with him on every wave he had surfed since then around the world.

Memorial ceremony at Dolphin Point in Coogee

He broke down as he spoke of the grief and the guilt he had suffered since then, the guilt that he walked away alive while Tom later died of his burns.

"Yes we were deeply wounded but those who did this haven't won and they will never win," Ryan, 27, said.

Tom, 17, was the bloody and bruised young man photographed with his arm around Hanabeth Luke as she helped him from the club, a photograph that captured not only the horror but the hope in the wake of the attack. He died a month later of his wounds. His parents, Megan and Peter Singer, listened among the crowd.

Doves released during a memorial ceremony at Dolphin Point in Coogee. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images Source: The Daily Telegraph

Ryan said that his mother Michelle was the only mother who had survived that night put out of all the families  from Sydney's eastern suburbs who were at the club that night. Six other mothers died.

Jane Elkin lost her big brother Dave Mavroudis, who wore the no 5 shirt for the Coogee Dolphins, in the blast.

"Ten years on it's just as hard as the day it happened. I think you just start to learn to live and laugh again," she said.

It was a program of songs and speeches developed as in previous years in close consultation with the affected families and ended with the release of 88 doves.

In 2002, Randwick Council re-named the point above Giles Baths at the north end of Coogee Beach “Dolphin Point” and dedicated this as a memorial site to those who lost their lives.

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au