MAFS relationship expert and media personality, Mel Schilling, has been laid to rest, her family revealed. Her husband shared the funeral details.
“We laid Mel to rest on the 9th April,” her husband Gareth Brisbane wrote on Instagram. “It was a lovely private ceremony for family and close friends, which we streamed to Mel’s family in Oz.”
Gareth also wrote that their daughter Maddie wrote and made a “little speech”, which she “delivered beautifully.”
“Every inch her mother’s daughter and I couldn’t be prouder,” he wrote.
Gareth also shared that they scattered Mel’s ashes in a place that was close to her heart.
“We scattered some of Mels ashes at the lighthouse in my hometown of Whitehead, Northern Ireland, as was her wish,” Gareth revealed. “It’s a special place that really resonated with her, a place where strangers say hello as you pass, and a place we can now come back to to reflect on our incredible 15 years together.”
Gareth also revealed the next chapter for him and his daughter. In the coming weeks, they will be moving to Bali to start anew. He also shared that it had a special meaning for Mel as well.
“No better place to heal, a place that we all loved and where we still have some of our dearest friends who had the most wonderful blessing ceremony for Mel at our new villa last weekend.”
More than two years after her first colon cancer diagnosis, Mel Schilling passed away from the disease at just 54 years old.
“Cancer made me look at myself differently,” she said in an interview with The Weekly during her cancer treatment. “I felt like my body was betraying me; that was the overwhelming feeling.”
Despite initially believing she was “out of the woods”, her cancer returned. She stepped away from MAFS to be with family, but shared the sad news shortly after.
“My oncology team has now told me there is nothing further they can do,” Mel wrote on Instagram. “My light is starting to fade – and quickly. But I am still here, still fighting, and surrounded by the most incredible love… I honestly don’t know how long I have left, but I do know I will fight to my last breath and will be surrounded by the love and support of my people.”
Sadly, she died soon after.
“Thanks so much for all the messages of support over the past month since our girl’s passing,” Gareth wrote in the post about Mel’s funeral details. “Maddie and I have drawn enormous strength from how so very loved she was and is.”
