Some memories do not fade with time. Instead, they settle more deeply within us, waiting quietly until life gives them new meaning.

One such memory for me is an evening at the Sydney Opera House, where Peter and I had the privilege of listening to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform Pictures at an Exhibition under the direction of Giancarlo Guerrero. Even now, when I think back to it, I can still feel something of the atmosphere of that night. The grandeur of the hall, the expectancy in the air, the hush that fell over the audience before the first notes began. There is something about live music that feels almost sacred to me. It asks nothing and yet awakens everything. It slips past the mind and goes straight to the soul.

That night, I was not simply listening. I was being carried.

I followed the music as it moved through strength and tenderness, grandeur and ache. I let myself sink into it completely. The rhythms seemed to pulse through me, and the melodies stirred emotions I could not have named, only felt. There are moments in life when beauty arrives with such force that it almost undoes you. That was one of them. I remember feeling overwhelmed, moved in a way that was both exhilarating and strangely vulnerable, as though the music had found a hidden door within me and quietly opened it.

And then, suddenly, it stopped.

Everything in me rose to respond. My hands were ready to clap, my body almost ready to stand. I wanted to show my gratitude, my wonder, my appreciation for the magnificence of what I had just witnessed. But all around me there was silence. Stillness. No one moved. No one applauded. For a moment I sat there, caught between emotion and confusion, until I realised what had happened. What I had assumed was the ending was not the ending at all. It was only a pause. I had heard only the first movement. The greater part of the music was still to come.

And when it came, it was more powerful than I could have imagined.

What had seemed so moving at first now felt almost like a doorway into something far grander. The beauty I had already heard had not been the fullness of the piece at all, only its beginning. After the pause, the music swelled and deepened. It gathered weight, majesty and splendour. It was richer, fuller, more breathtaking than the opening movement had prepared me for. What I had thought was magnificent began to pale beside what was still unfolding. The first part had been beautiful, yes, but it was only a hint, only a glimpse, only the first stirring of something much more glorious still to come.

That memory returned to me with unexpected force when Queen Elizabeth died.

Her death seemed to draw a hush across the world. It was as though, for a moment, everything stopped. Even those of us who had never met her felt the weight of the loss. She was not family, and yet she had been part of the fabric of our lives for so long that her absence felt strangely personal. I had never known a world without her. She had always been there, steady and composed, through seasons of history, through times of celebration and sorrow, through a world that changed so rapidly around her.

There was something deeply comforting in that constancy. In an age that often feels restless, loud and uncertain, she seemed to embody qualities that had grown rare: faithfulness, restraint, dignity, humility, endurance. She did not need to draw attention to herself. She simply remained steadfast. Year after year, decade after decade, she carried the weight of duty with quiet strength.

What a remarkable life it was.

And what a privilege it was to witness even a small part of it.

When I think of her now, I do not only think of a queen, but of a woman who kept going, who held her place, who lived with a sense of calling larger than herself. A woman whose public role was immense, and yet whose words about faith revealed something tender and deeply personal. In her 2002 Christmas message, she spoke of relying on her faith to guide her through both the good times and the bad, of putting her trust in God, and of drawing strength from the hope found in the Christian gospel. Those words linger differently when heard in light of her death. They feel less like formal tradition and more like quiet testimony.

And so the world paused.

The music ceased. The crowds stood in silence. Her coffin lay at rest. It all felt so final, so heavy with farewell. And yet deep within me came the memory of that night at the Opera House, and with it, the gentle reminder that what looks like an ending is not always the end.

Sometimes it is only a pause.

Sometimes the silence is not emptiness, but expectancy.

Because if the music taught me anything that night, it was this: the beauty that comes after the pause can be more magnificent than all that came before. What first seemed complete was only the beginning. What first seemed overwhelming was only a prelude. The opening movement, for all its beauty, paled beside the splendour that followed.

And perhaps that is the hope faith offers us in the face of death.

That no matter how dignified, how fruitful, how magnificent a life on earth has been, it is still only the beginning. Still only the first movement. Still only the faintest foretaste of what is yet to come.

The world heard the music stop.

But for those who believe, this was never the end of her song.

Only the stillness between movements.

Only the breath held before glory.

Only the holy hush before a far more magnificent music begins.