Sydney siege victims Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson mourned at memorial services | Australia news | The GuardianSydney siege victims Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson mourned at memorial services | Australia news | The Guardian










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Sydney siege



Sydney siege victims Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson mourned at memorial services









Survivors of Martin Place Lindt cafe siege join victims’ families and NSW premier, governor and police commissioner at memorial services

















The partner of Tori Johnson, Thomas Zinn, and members of Johnson’s family carry the casket. Photograph: Nikki Short/AAP




Michael Safi






@safimichael





Monday 22 December 2014 21.43 EST







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The family and friends of Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson have gathered at two ceremonies in Sydney to celebrate and bid farewell ot the pair, who were killed in the final chaotic minutes of last week’s Lindt cafe siege.
Johnson’s family formed a tight circle outside the St Stephen’s Uniting Church on Tuesday morning before the hearse arrived bearing an unadorned white coffin.
It was carried into the church to the strains of Ave Maria, where about 900 mourners, including NSW premier Mike Baird, governor David Hurley and police commissioner Andrew Scipione, stood in tribute to a man already stamped a hero in the public imagination.
To his family and partner of 14 years, Thomas Zinn, he was something even more precious. It was his love and generosity they remembered. They chose a reflection by the Persian poet Rumi for the program: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.”



Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.
Photograph: AAP


Earlier in the morning the sea of flowers that had grown following the siege was gently disassembled. By the beginning of the service only a few bouquets remained, observed by mourners who had created in the bustling city a place of a quiet tribute and contemplation.
Tears flowed after the ceremony as Johnson’s loved ones embraced each other on Macquarie Street, some of the other siege hostages among their ranks. By then, the flowers in Martin Place were gone.
Buddhist monks in maroon robes and saffron-fringed caps accompanied Johnson’s body into the hearse, performing puja, or acts of reverence. The coffin will be cremated.
Those who came to pay their respects to the second siege victim, Katrina Dawson, filled two halls of the University of Sydney and flowed out onto its front lawns, where they clustered around speakers and shielded each other from the rain.
Pictures flashed of Dawson beaming luminously on her wedding day, a siamese cat luxuriating in her arms.
Her close friend and fellow barrister Jeremy Stoljar invited those gathered to “remember the good times”. Her three young children, Ollie, Chloe and Sasha, had selected songs for the service, he said. “I hope you like Kenny Rogers as much as Chloe does.”
Eight-year-old Chloe had chosen Rogers’s The Gambler. Ollie, six, picked Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Dawson’s youngest, four-year-old Sasha, opted for Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
Dawson’s parents, Sandy and Jane, had shared the disbelieving reaction of her friends when her state-topping high school academic results were released: “But she seems so normal.”
Together, the family had celebrated Dawson’s 38th birthday only two months ago. “How precious was this time we spent together; how grateful I am to her for it,” her mother said.
Her brothers, Sandy and Angus, quipped that Dawson was born the same day that Mao Zedong passed away in China: “We liked to joke that one dictator replaced another.” Tears mixed with peals of laughter. That, they said, was how Dawson would have wanted it.
The former governor-general, Dame Quentin Bryce, also addressed the mourners. She is the founding member of the Katrina Dawson Foundation, which will focus on increasing educational opportunities for women. 
Speaking at a media conference later in Sydney, the prime minister, Tony Abbott, said the services “symbolised the power of love”.
Australians should be proud of the way that had come together following the siege “in defiance of extremism and terrorism”, he said.



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