What kind of hole will you leave...? How many dances will you leave undanced...?

Last week I had the privilege and honour of accompanying my mum to the celebration of the life of one of her Besties - a woman whom mum lovingly thought of as her Big Sister.

We were celebrating Noeline's life - all 93 fully-lived years. Until very recently, Noeline was out dancing six nights each week - rock'n'roll, sequence, ballroom. If there was a beat and people, you would've found Noeline on the dance floor.

Noeline was a woman who lived life and lived it to the full.

She wanted her funeral service to be one of celebration, not mourning. Which is pretty hard when there're only memories now filling the massive hole that used to contain the joy, laughter and positivity that was Noeline's trademark.

The memorial hall was filled to capacity with standing room only. I did a rough count and estimated there must be around 300 people present - all wearing brightly coloured outfits, because that's what she would've wanted.

Noeline was carried into the hall through a guard of rock'n'rolling honour. One of her clubs performed a beautiful and joyous 'hand jive' for her.

Living life superficially is easy. Living life on the edges is easy. Living life as a spectator is easy.

It takes guts to put yourself out there. To make a difference. To count for something. Noeline counted for family and positivity.

My mum met Noeline through sequence dancing. Discovering they lived not far from each other. They decided it would be a good idea to carpool the 45-minute each way trip.

And so the friendship started.

I went sequence dancing with them both a couple of times.

The clock tower in Levin will always remind me of Noeline. Apparently it was a "thing" for mum and Noeline to check the accuracy of the time and temperature against the digital displays in mum's car each trip. Sometimes they matched, most times they didn't.

Since that first time, now, whenever I pass the Levin clocktower I hear Noeline's voice letting my mum know "... they're wrong again, Jeanie".

I went dancing with mum again on the night of Noeline's funeral. I lost count of the number of times someone told me how impressed and awed they were because my mum drives all that way just to go dancing.

For my mum, though, it's just what she does. She doesn't think twice about it.

There were about 50 people dancing that night. I was the youngest by far. Young enough to be everyone's daughter. Apparently, there were seven nonagenarians there that night. That's pretty impressive, eh?

I watched a few of the couples. They'd probably been dancing together for decades longer than I've been on this earth. They mightn't walk as fast as they once did, but they could still keep up with the music and move around gracefully. And you could tell they were enjoying themselves.

I was sitting on the sidelines watching my mum enjoy herself. As a single woman, you don't get many dances at events like that, unless another woman is prepared to dance as the man. Noeline had the skills to do that for my mum. I discovered I didn't, which was a shame for both of us.

To my delight, I discovered that although I'm a bit of a has-been dancer, muscle memory is really a thing. The dance teacher asked me to dance the last dance - the Silver Anniversary Waltz - all new steps for me. I'm relieved to say I only mis-stepped once.

Being there that night with my mum and her community of dancers kinda got me thinking about dusting off my dancing shoes again.

I know Noeline wouldn't want anyone not to dance if there was even the slightest chance their feet might tap to the beat...

Here's to living life and living it to the full, dancing as many dances as possible and to leave only love, joy and positivity in our wake.