05/01/2026
Today we buried a pretty special woman.
A bit about my friend Aneta…
She disliked having pictures made. She complained she was too fat, too old and too boring. I told her she was none of those things!! She was a flame of a woman, with a big heart and the most beautiful woman in the world to her son and dog.
She was out and about most nights taking her sweet neuro-diverese boy to therapies and sport, squeezing in some beach time wherever she could!! So when we agreed to make these pictures, the brief was… make some pictures of our beautiful real. Kid running one way, making handstands and the dog running the other way chasing his ball! She wanted to remember them at this sweet age, just before puberty and becoming a man. We might find 6 minutes for some posed shots… but she embraced me photographing them documentary family style…
She loved them when she saw them, but wished she was 20 years younger. We were looking at them again the other week, 12 months after her cancer diagnosis and a brutal treatment regime to give her more to time with her boy!! She said “damn, i still wish i looked like that”.
It was an honour to include her pictures from her session as part of her funeral service. And it helps my heart knowing her boy can look back on these pictures and not only feel the love, but see it too!
My tribute to my friend.
My good friend Mark from the dog park mentioned to me that I need to meet and talk with a woman called Aneta. He thought we would get along, had some similar ideas about the world. He wasn’t wrong.
This flame of a woman, with her big boy Obi, had a big heart. Strong views. And was as smart as a PHD Scholar in her knowledge of civilisations and how things came to be!! We didn’t agree on everything. But that was ok!
What we did agree on was the love of our dogs. This beautiful woman and her husband and son welcomed me into their home when my lease ended and my sweet boy Louis was dying. They gave us time and space to experience that sad time. She was grace and kindness and patience and is a person who would give me the shirt from her back if I needed it. We shared many stories about our lives with each other, we laughed hard and often, we sometimes had heated discussions about the world and we became forever friends.
I will miss her deeply!
I wanted to acknowledge the fabulous chatterer she was. The friends she made at the dog park and beach with her sweet fur boy Obi…
Sweet mate Louis of course, Basbousa (Obi’s wife), Shadow (his girlfriend), Shi, Ziggy, Pippin, Sunny, Frankie, Maggie, Bens, Misty, Ruby, Sara, Whinnie, Buddy, Roger and Cookie… and of course all their humans and so many other dogs I don’t know the name of…
We were recently looking at some photos I made for her, Aiden and Obi down at the beach…and she mentioned to me that if there was a heaven, that it would be it… feet in the sand and water, watching out over the water as they, her boy and her dog, ran around in circles in the gloriousness of real life.
And my heaven would be to see her there, with my little guy Louis, running with them.
Aiden. you were the sunshine to her days, the stars to her night! She loved you easily and effortlessly and always will ❤️
Aneta Lubi Zielinska Steve Lubi
