I’ve been on the wrong side of the funeral this week. The vibrant, energetic and inspirational legend who is my sister-in-law passed from our lives. Jan leaves not just a hole to step around but a crater we need to hike around.

Jan’s first cancer diagnosis came nine years ago and she has fought the good fight, with long periods of good health and a relentlessly positive attitude. Her decline was swift over a three-week period. As we each, Jan included, came to terms with the inevitability of her death, sharing our love for her with her became a priority.

So much love from so many quarters: an avalanche of supportive messages. Loving, funny, poignant, wise messages – all read to her, and enjoyed by her. They came in by phone, email, text, five different social media apps, and on pen and paper. The sheer number of ways we could each be contacted was mind-blowing. The volume of messages from each stream was simply enormous and threatened to overwhelm us.

We needed to find a way to manage the missives, and continue to celebrate them, and fast. The last thing we wanted was for the outpouring of love and support to become a problem. If each of us receiving messages was starting to buckle under their weight, it goes without saying that those delivering them, and the one receiving them, might be feeling that to the  power of ten. And that simply would not do.

We had already, informally and almost accidentally, assigned ourselves various cluster groups. Family. School friends from 60 years ago. Flatmates from 40 years ago. Antenatal groups from 30 years ago. Workmates from 20 years ago. Did I mention that a friend of Jan’s was a friend for life?

Like the “telephone tree” of old, each cluster was updated with status reports and need-to-knows, and each in turn disseminated that information further afield.

Each “cluster manager” became responsible for receiving, moderating and disseminating messages for that group. Each chose their own preferred method of contact. There was a WhatsApp group for immediate family, which had been set up when the Aussie border allowed a siblings reunion in May. There were private message groups, Facebook targeted-audience posts, and specially established email addresses.

To consolidate and deliver the messages we used a Kudoboard – a sort of online pinboard that Jan had discovered and shared earlier in the year. It was both simple and effective. A link to the board is shared with friends, family, colleagues, who can leave messages, photos, videos, memes which are laid out on the board and presented in the order they are received.

It worked perfectly for us. I started by copying the messages I had received to it, and we then shared the link widely. Each message was then shared with Jan until she left us, then messages were (and are still) being left on it for her family.

I’m left with a lasting message of a different sort. The night before we drove to Auckland for the funeral, my 90-year-old Dad gave me a letter for Jan’s husband Neil. In a quiet time in the days following, I delivered it by hand. Each message has its own best delivery mechanism.

In honour of pen and paper, I leave the final word to David Baker, Executive Director of the gorgeously-named “Writing Instrument Manufacturer’s Association”:

 "Though computers and e-mail play an important role in our lives, nothing will ever replace the sincerity and individualism expressed through the handwritten word."