This is his father Duncan Wakes-Miller’s Eulogy read by Duncan and Barney’s brother Tenzin at his Funeral in Sydney on 7th August 2020:

But before I go on, here are two short verses from Barn’s Grandfathers we’d like to read. I’ll read the first one from ‘Gumpa Patrick’ then Tenzin will read the next one from ‘Grandpa Clive’.

Wordsworth said at the funeral of a young son:

“I loved the boy with the utmost love

Of which my soul is capable,

And he is taken from us.

Yet in surrendering such a treasure I feel a thousand times richer.

Than if I had never possessed it.”

A poem by Ralph Wright, chosen by Grandpa Clive Wakes-Miller - ‘When God Made You’.

When God made you there was silence in heaven for five minutes.

Then God said: “How come I never thought of that before?”

On behalf of the Wakes-Miller family we are grateful for our community and friends for joining us today in celebration of Barn’s life.

We are grateful to be part of the Saint Augustines, Oxford Falls Grammar School and Many Selective community.

I am grateful for my wife Bella and our amazing children Arthur, Barney, Tenzin and Iona.

We always promised we don’t have favourites and that remains true.

However today Barn this is all about you.

I am proud to call you my son. There is not a prouder man on this earth. Nor prouder parents or prouder siblings in Arthur, Tenzin and Iona.

Our love is enduring.

It’s a strange thing life. The days tick by and you just keep expecting them to keep on coming. Until the unexpected happens.

I had a vision of growing old with my beautiful wife and four, incredible, amazing children. With Barn at the very heart of the family, the joker, the crazy kid, the special Uncle that tells the best stories, husband, the father to a rabble of kids and the friend to many. I wanted that so badly it hurts my very core. I know I’m not alone in this dream.

Stuff happens and then as you learn to see the world as it is, and not as you want it to be, everything changes.

That’s the thing about life; it is so fragile, precious and so unpredictable.

It also feels, at times like this, so unfair.

Barn you are just 17 and it is cruel that you have been taken from us by a crash that could have been avoided.*

Stuff happens and you have to deal with it. And in time we will.

That is a choice we have made.

We will emerge stronger.

We will be open to more possibilities.

We will cherish love and we will never forget.

To be honest today I feel deep underwater drowning in conflicting emotions of disbelief, anger, blame as well as gratitude, love and treasured feelings for Barn.

I keep telling myself and our family to please hold onto the good, acknowledge the bad feelings and let the bad feelings slip away.

To our friends here today and afar, listening down the other end of the internet, we are grateful for your love and care. We need you like we never have before.

To the Saint Augustine’s community your spirit of truth, love and community is remarkable. Thank you, please continue to take care of the boys and your incredible staff.

Grief can be destructive to families and communities. We are going to need time to heal. This is not the moment to bottle things up and get on with life.

It is a time for deep reflection and healing.

As Arthur wisely said to me - we will not get over this, we cannot go around it, we cannot go under it. We have to go through it. Arthur is right. I’m told by my boys most of the time they are.

Barn was particularly good at being right. Even when he wasn’t.

Barn was born on the second of January 2003. 

A great day and I remember driving down to Manly beach after leaving Bella and Barn in the hospital. It was a magical sunny day and there was a perfect wave along the beach. Most of all I remember a feeling of immense gratitude.

I still feel that today while I breathe I hope.

This is also the motto of Bella’s family, the Casements. ‘Dum Spiro Spero.’

From day one Barn was a bundle of energy and joy. He had an ability to make people happy and to make them laugh almost every day of his life.

He was never short of friends and many of his lifelong buddies are here today. For us as parents he is our wild child.

Our house is like a shrine to Barn’s artwork. He loved to draw, to make cartoons and to paint. Unconventional, creative and always fun. He even decorated his room with art and crazy lighting.

We have books of artwork and amazingly intricate cartoons, also some incredible drawings and edgy street art.

Everyone who spent time with Barn seems to have a special and funny story. Not all of which it would be appropriate to recall today.

One of our favourites was when Barn was about seven years old. At that time Arthur was doing well in sports of all types and seemed to be in the grand final of this and that. Barn was feeling slightly left out and his nose was a little out of joint.

He said to me one day “I am a champion aren't I Dad?”  I said “Of course you are Barn, you're my champion.”

“Yes”, he said with a huge grin on his face. 

“I was practising swimming up and down, up and down. Chasing that egg. And then I got there first and I won the sperm grand final!”

Priceless, and so Barn.

As well as his art, Barn chose to do rock climbing as a hobby, basically because it was a sport no one else did in the family.

Barn loved climbing and used to train at RockHouse in Brookvale. He excelled at climbing and became the Barnacle Boy.

He trained during the week and he and I would spend hours every weekend going to various climbing walls in remote industrial estates all around the state and even down to Melbourne as part of the ‘Tour de Corde’ series.

My job was transport, food and belaying - which is holding his rope so that if he fell I could catch him. He seldom fell. Although when he did it was apparently always my fault. I could never work out the physics of that. I knew that he knew that I always had his back. And his frustration was because he always had high expectations of himself. It was an unsaid truth that we both knew and I always let it ride so he had unbridled support.

He was the NSW State champion and runner up in the Nationals. He was truly ‘the Barnacle boy’.

We are fortunate to have had some amazing family holidays to England, Fiji, New Zealand, France, Japan and Vietnam.

We first went skiing in Queenstown in New Zealand.

Barn could ski almost straight away. His style, like life, was speed and experience before technique and control. A great memory is our daily family races on the last run of each day. He often won. When you consider the competition, that's a fair feat.

Another fond memory was one day skiing in Japan finding Barn at the top of a double black diamond run persuading his little sister Iona that the run was in fact a red run and easy. I still remember the big smile and glint in his eyes as he looked reassuringly at me to kind of check-in it was ok. He loved his little sister. And she loves him.

Iona skied it. So did Tenzin, Arthur and I.

Barn floated over the biggest moguls I’ve seen straight down the fall line. It was epic for all of us - I don’t think I’ve seen a skier go so fast with such incredible balance yet completely out of control. Frighteningly fearless.

I also remember Iona making sure in no uncertain terms he knew not to do that again to her. A wonderful relationship between two strong minded characters. There’s much of Barn in his little sister, including the freckles.

On our frequent visits to England, Barn experienced  London, the big city at Bella's parents house in Hampstead. Also the magic of the classic English countryside in my parents’ house in Thornham, Norfolk.

There we often met for huge family gatherings. Catching crabs, getting very muddy, camping out on the sand dunes, visiting Grandpa's bee hives. Cups of tea and eating Granny’s cake around the kitchen table with cousins Charli, Lucy, Joe, Esme, Max and Jasper. Brainstorming ‘get rich quick’ ideas and being very naughty.

At Bella's parents, Patrick and Margaret’s, our gang experienced London visiting all the amazing sights and exploring Hampstead and Camden. I know Barn loved exploring the markets of Camden Lock and a highlight for me was taking him to see Damian Hirst's exhibition at the Tate Modern Art museum. The radical creative thinking was an eye opener and right up his street.

In Scotland Barn visited Auntie Hanna (also his Godmother) and the Tibetan Monastery at Samye Ling. Another spiritual place and person special to him. In Scotland he also handled amazing birds of prey.

Seal Rocks on the north coast of NSW is our special happy place. We have been camping there twice a year for over twelve years.

Barn learned to drive on Lighthouse beach. He surfed on Main Beach, Treachery, Lighthouse, Yagon, Blueys and Cellitos beaches.

He jumped into the ocean from the highest cliff. He dived with sharks at our secret spot. We fished together from a place you had to climb down from a cliff with the help of a rope - known as Barn and Ben’s magic fishing spot. He visited the lighthouse at night during a ferocious storm and got soaked to the skin. He chose the brightest star Sirius in the sky as ‘his’ when we looked to the heavens. He danced around the campfire. He ran free with us and with friends.

Barn was the one that pushed boundaries, not I think to rebel but rather to explore. He certainly challenged me as his father and I love him for that. Once I laminated a card, just like out of the Monopoly game, it read

“Get out of jail FREE - call this name and number”. It had my name and number on it. When I gave it to him he asked me how many times he could use it.

You have to laugh.

He used it once. About a year ago.

Boys like Barn need people holding ropes and catching them when they fall so that their mistakes can become lessons to make them men.

Men like me and his brothers need boys like Barn so that we have people to challenge us and give us fresh perspective and purpose.

Barn played football for Manly Allambie United, Rugby League for Forestville Ferrets, Rugby Union for Manly Roos, Soccer and Waterpolo for Saint Augustines and was a nipper at South Curly. It’s safe to say he was more interested in being with his mates than competing in sport. And he gave everything a go!

He was a fearless swimmer and he swam the Cole Classic ocean swim a few times and swam from Manly beach to Shelly and back when he was only ten.

Recently Barn was starting to train and work on his fitness with the aim of getting huge. At six foot two in my eyes he already was.

One of the best weeks of my life was taking Arthur and Barn to walk the overland track in Tasmania. Arthur was 13 and Barn only 11. We had to walk for 6 days carrying all our own food and camping gear and everything we took in we had to take out. It is a trek difficult for any fit adult let alone a 12 year old carrying 30% of his own body weight.

We trekked through the wilderness and summited a number of peaks including Cradle Mountain, we also took some magical side tracks to hidden waterfalls. We swam in freezing lakes and saw no signs of human civilization for miles and miles.

On the last day we did a double day's walk and I’ll never forget Barn’s joking and laughing as he trudged through the bush, absolutely exhausted. He was so strong and he was my inspiration. He still is. When we got to the end we all dived into Lake St Clair and swam in a deep pool where I later saw a platypus. It was magical.

I miss him every day and keep expecting to see him lumbering through the house grunting and asking me interesting questions on whatever the latest subject of his attention was or demanding more bacon for his statutory diet of bacon and eggs.

On his last day he cooked me bacon and eggs when I came back from a long run. He was a master of fried eggs. He’d never done that before. I am so grateful his last day with us was a good one.

There was lots of happy talk about the future.

Barn proved that the best relationships are created between people who are living the life they want to live. His brother Tenzin I know was an inspiration for him. He felt safe and protected by the strength of his big brother Arthur. Unconditionally, loved by his gorgeous strong willed little sister Iona. He made his mother laugh and shares her infectious personality and ability to befriend almost anyone.

I was trying to get him to “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” just like Picasso said. We talked about that.

As a man I have many faults and he helped me expose them. Barn stretched me as a father and made me a better man for him being in my life. We both knew that.

There is a law of Conservation of Energy in physics.

This law means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another.

Barn as we all know was full of beautiful energy.

For me his energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

It has been transformed or transferred from one form to another. This can be understood in your own way regardless of your faith or religious belief.

I wrote these words shortly after his death.

When you turn on a tap and the water gushes out faster and stronger than you thought.

Think of Barn.

When you see a river flowing and the water is too fast and the current quite possibly too dangerous to swim.

Think of Barn.

When the waves rolling in are massive. The sunlight captures their power and beauty. The reverse wind blowing spray off their backs.

Think of Barn.

When the night sky is so bright that you feel in awe. The light is so strong you are taken aback

Think of Barn.

When the storm comes with dark clouds, strong winds, thunder and lightning. But it will pass and you are safe in the wonder.

Think of Barn.

I, like many of us today, am searching for a reason - so I started to think about what Barn would say?

I think he’d want people to stop worrying about the wrong stuff and celebrate the right stuff.

Small meaningless worries and stresses in life don’t matter. After all, we all have the same fate in the end. It's important to do what you can to make every second count to make your time worthy and great without all the bullshit.

He’d want people to be kind to each other.

Value time with people.

Invest in experiences.

Don’t do stuff you don’t want to do.

Get into nature, dive right in.

Listen to music, really listen.                       

Embrace art without prejudice.

Take your own perspective. Do not be afraid to be unconventional.

Love like it is the first and last time. Repeat.

Get up with the sun.

Gaze at the stars at night.

Talk with your friends. Love them. Tell them you love them.

Make people laugh.

Get rich quick in the currency of fun, love and friendship.

Live your life in colour.

Eat the cake, take the last piece. Share it only if you want.

If you are feeling bad, have the courage to change it. Don’t waste time being miserable, you don’t know how much time you have.

Start daily random acts of kindness.

From little things great things grow - It can start with a smile or even a tear of joy.

There’s lots to be grateful for.

Don’t lose what you have to what you have lost.

Channel your inner Barn.

Barn never cared too much for how he looked; he sought out experiences to build out the image that he wanted to see in the world. 

If we want to maximise happiness, we need to prioritise experiences over appearances.

Barn experienced true love with his beautiful Dasha who is an angel.

Remember everyone. Be gentle with yourself.

Yourself is enough. You have nothing to prove.

A poet called Thomas Mordaunt once said:

“One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name.”

Barn you had a glorious life in your short time with us.

Barn. My heart is broken. For the first time I am scared of what lies ahead.

My solace is that you live in my heart and you will never leave me. And I will never leave you. I am still getting used to that.

beautiful girls, the boys and our family.

A few years ago we, as a family, sat down after a big meal and wrote down what we liked about each other and why we loved each other.

Barn, you know these words to be true because I wrote them down for you to never forget and we found them in your top drawer so I know you read them. I’ll be writing more in time.

What I can promise ‘big fella’ is that I will look after your

What I love about you is that you are my son.

You make me very proud.

I love to be with you and the fact that you challenge me with creative thinking and a fabulous imagination.

Your energy is infectious.

What makes you special is your crazy imagination and your ability to see fun in everything.

You have the strength and energy to climb any mountain and surpass any challenge

And you did in your glorious life.

I could speak for a thousand days and would still not even come close to showing how much you taught us and how much you meant to us.

Thank you Barn.

*Barney was killed by the reckless indifference of a speeding and drunk driver on 18.07.2020