A celebration veiled by unbearable sadness

The spirit that walked shoulder to shoulder with Phillip Hughes on his final earthly journey arrived early in Macksville today.

It was not much after 9am, five hours before the young cricketer's farewell was scheduled, 90-year-old Hal Black took up a roadside position outside the town's high school and sat a quiet vigil in the enervating sub-tropical heat.

Nursing a thick paperback novel from which a signed photo of the local boy in full batting flight protruded as a bookmark, he recalled his meeting with the then 12-year-old cricket prodigy in the very same sports hall where his short but notable life would be celebrated more than a decade later.

It was Australia Day 2001, and as part of the nation's recognition of its notable citizens Phillip Hughes had been honoured as Nambucca Shire's Young Sportsman of the Year.

As he stood shyly awaiting his gong alongside the sprightly WWII Veteran, who only handed in his golf club membership card a matter of months ago, Hal made him a prophetic pledge.

"I told him that if he was picked in the Australian Test team I would give him my Victory Test Series tie – which is pretty unique," Hal reflected as he waited to take his place among the thousand or more mourners who filled the sports hall, with as many or more gathering on the adjacent oval.

As far as cricket keepsakes go, the tie that commemorates the special series of matches staged between Walter Hammond's English team and an Australian XI led by Lindsay Hassett in celebration of the War's end in 1945 is indeed a rarity.

Hal received it from his wartime unit commander and New South Wales allrounder Albert 'Bert' Cheetham who played in that series, and when Hughes – at age 20 – took his place in Test cricket eight years later, the treasured memento was duly presented to the boy's proud father, Greg.

Such was the spirit that Phillip Hughes exuded.

Those who had barely seen him play were convinced – after the exchange of a few words – that he would make it the whole way.

And so many who had never met him stopped in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, wherever they were in Australia, to grieve with his family, friends and the community he loved.

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Michael Clarke bids his farewell // Getty Images

It was the spirit of which Hughes's teammate, captain and adopted 'older brother' Michael Clarke spoke in a touching, heartfelt eulogy in which he recalled how he took himself to the centre of the SCG last Thursday – the day the 25-year-old died – to stand at the very spot his mate had fallen.

"I stood there and then knelt down to touch the grass, and I swear he was with me," Clarke said, fighting back the tears that welled across the nation.

"Is this what Indigenous Australians believe about a person's spirit being connected with the land upon which they walk?

"If so, I know they are right about the SCG.

"His spirit has touched it and it will forever be a sacred ground for me."

It was that spirit, along with passion, the generosity, the humour, the foibles and the remarkable strength that characterised a life so unfathomably curtailed in its prime that was celebrated today, albeit through a heavy veil of almost unbearable sadness.

The pictures painted over more than an hour of a respectful if driven, loving and loved son, brother, cousin, business partner and teammate will do much to sustain those who wake tomorrow to begin their reshaped lives without him.

A spirit, as cousin Nino Ramunno recounted, that was sustained by Phillip's regular weekly helpings of his Italian-born Nonna's pizza and pasta, the regular life counselling calls to his mother, Virginia, and the achievements of his younger sister Megan as she pursued her own sporting dream.

The spirit that underpinned the ambition he held to breed and sell Angus cattle, forged in partnership with his father and the expertise of business associate Corey Ireland who promised the congregation and wider audience he would honour in his friend's passing.

And the areas where the prodigiously talented batsman was not quite as strong as the square cut that will forever define him.

Such as the seemingly self-evident fact – upon attending his first day of Year 12 at Homebush Boys' High School when he moved to the city as a 17-year-old – there was a worrying absence of his girls at his new campus.

The fact that his regular text messages back home from wherever in the world cricket took him required a healthy dose of spell checking.

And that his talent for arithmetic was so challenged that his older brother, Jason, eventually gave up on his regular tutoring sessions to explain how his sibling needed to go about calculating his batting average.

But even while he admitted no head for them, Phillip Hughes's world was dominated by numbers.

Like the 64 he scored playing as a nine-year-old opener in his first representative match for the Nambucca under-12s, a milestone he so cherished it became the number he chose to adorn his Australian ODI shirt.

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Hughes gave a nod to his roots with his ODI number // Getty Images

The 26 showbags that Corey Ireland's two children clutched between them after Hughes – so much a family man that he became a surrogate older brother to countless friends' kids – took them for a day out to Sydney's Easter Show having promised them as many trinkets as they desired.

The 10-year business plan he formulated in between making centuries that was to procure and sustain a herd of 600 Black Angus cattle and sell a quota of 200 bulls per year.

And the special partnership that he and Jason shared in their final, precious time at the crease together in a Sydney grade cricket match for Western Suburbs against Mosman.

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The Hughes brothers' final innings together // MyCricket

It was the spirit that coursed through the cortege of thousands that fell silently into step behind the hearse as it glided slowly through the streets of Macksville, which themselves were lined by hundreds more who voiced their appreciation in the manner cricketers best know – grateful applause.

And it was the spirit that was toasted in the Macksville Ex Services Club as the heavy afternoon clouds closed in, where family and teammates and fans and friends raised a glass or two and shared a memory or two and shed a tear or more.

Where the grieving parents took time to give thanks to so many who were, in turn, deeply thankful.

Notwithstanding the photo montage that played on loop above their heads, the display cabinet of a life in cricket's proud moments and mementos, and the autographed Australian shirt that holds price of place above the front bar, the presence of Phillip Hughes was constant.

As it will be from the time that the game he loved, and which loves him back, goes on.