Picture: Donna Oates
MIKAYLA Francis was fearless, friendly, cheeky and caring and touched thousands of hearts around the world.
Last Saturday more than 300 people gathered at East Side Christian Church in Bayswater to farewell the Cockatoo seven-year-old, who lost her cancer fight on 13 December.
During her 13-week fight with a rare liver cancer, Mikayla’s courage and positive outlook captured attention across the globe.
“I’ve had letters and emails – she has literally changed their lives,” dad Andrew Francis said.
Stepmother Rachel Francis said people would remember Mikayla for her kindness and selflessness.
“You’d go to the playground and she’d always be the one going up to people saying ‘Hi, I’m Mikayla’,” she said.
Mr Francis said: “She just had a heart that … I don’t know where it came from. It was just gold.
“But she was still a seven-year-old girl. She was no angel. She was no saint.”
Mikayla had a massive sense of adventure.
“And swimming was her absolute passion,” Mr Francis said.
“If you gave her the option of going to the shops and spending a million dollars or going to the pool, she’d go to the pool.”
She loved school and was a chatterbox.
“On one of the school bus trips she sat behind the bus driver and on the way back he goes ‘that girl is not to sit behind me again’ because he just couldn’t handle the chattering.”
“That’s been her only complaint – ‘dad I want to go to school, I miss school’.”
The school community has rallied around the family.
“There’s people who just step in without us saying anything.
“They just see a need and fill it,” Mrs Francis said. John Allison/Monkhouse donated the funeral.
“There’s no way we could have afforded it,” Mrs Francis said.
Mr Francis couldn’t dream of a better send off for his little girl.
The oldest horse-drawn carriage in Melbourne brought Mikayla’s white casket to the funeral. The black horses wore angel wings.
“She was saving for horse riding lessons,” Mr Francis said.
“She’s getting her horse ride still. It’s not the same but it’s the best I can give her.”
Mikayla made requests for her funeral before she died. Mourners were asked to write messages on purple and pink sticky notes that were placed on her casket.
Miley Cyrus’s song See You Again kicked off the service.
“Which is just the dumbest song to start a funeral,” Mr Francis laughed.
Another wish was that everyone received a bracelet kit.
“When they got home they had to make that bracelet and then they had to give it to somebody else,” Mr Francis said.
“They weren’t allowed to keep it. That sums up her spirit. Always giving.”
Her Menzies Creek Primary schoolmates formed a guard of honour as her casket left the church and Mikayla’s sisters released butterflies.
“Mikayla has been my constant for seven years. She’s been my salvation more than once. There’s nothing that could hurt more than this,” Mr Francis said.
“If I can get through this I can face anything.”
