Chris Lane's girlfriend Sarah Harper arrives at his funeral in Essendon on Wednesday. Credit:Pat Scala He should be over there, far away, across the pacific and beyond the rockies and past the bronzed expanse of southwest, ensconsed in the hospitable warmth of a cornfed small town in Middle America. He should be in Duncan, Oklahoma, spending time with his girlfriend, gearing up for his senior year at East Central University, just another student making good on his scholarship and hoping for a golden Indian summer before the autumn semester starts. The 22-year-old student-athlete should be in full Tigers uniform, squatting behind home base on the diamond, tracking the flight path of fastballs and curveballs and knuckleballs and sliders, feeling the pitches as they slap into the cushioned leather of his catcher’s mitt. He should be standing in the sun above the plate, cleats scratching the dirt, bat in hand, swinging and missing, shagging fouls and popping flys and socking dingers, looking to the sky and listening as the sweet crack of bat-ball contact echoes through the park.

Chris Lane's mother Donna weeps as she arrives for the service. Credit:Pat Scala But of course Chris Lane is not there. And nor is he here. Cruelly, randomly, yet in calculated cold blood, he was taken from both places - torn from the small community that adopted him as their own and ripped from the Oak Park family in which he was raised. An army of the latter and a handful of the former were here today, at the red brick edifice of this church in Essendon, for his funeral from 11.30am onward- here to offer tearful condolences and bittersweet elegies and try to remember “Laney” in their own way. Australian baseballer Chris Lane with his girlfriend Sarah Harper. The service was well attended. Father Joe Giacobbe has been a priest for four decades and yet, "I don't think I have ever - ever - seen this church as full as it is today." Somewhere nearing 1000 people crammed into the house of prayer.

As with any Catholic funeral, it was weighty with the stylised rites of the faith, the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Breaking of Bread, the communions and readings that come with a full Mass. The hymns were personal: "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly and "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry among them. A floral tribute rests on the home plate at the Essendon Baseball Club in Melbourne. placed there in the days after he was gunned down in Oklahoma. Credit:Getty He was just normal. He was not quiet, and he was not overt. He enjoyed a beer with his mates, but he wasn't the team clown. He was a just a good person. The first family member to speak was his eldest sibling, big sister Andrea, flanked by Erin and Jennifer. He was their baby brother, the catnapper who, for the activity in their happy home, learned to sleep with his eyes open. Andrea spoke of common joys, like Christmas mornings, the four of them scuttling downstairs at 5am, and of common foibles, such as always knowing he was right, or lacking grace in defeat.

"Even when he was little he had to be on time," she said. "And on time meant early." And she spoke of the inherent goodness and fairness that always shone through. "Ever since primary school, Christopher was always the one to go out of his way to make people feel included. He was always helping out the underdog, or anyone who was disenfranchised." No one spoke of the details of his death, which are well known now. He was shot in the back with a .22 calibre revolver, fired from the window of a Ford Focus at 2.57pm on Friday, August 16, while he was out jogging. They will not dwell there. One of the great pieces of American sporting literature was a book by former New York baseball reporter, Roger Kahn, called The Boys of Summer. It examined the father-son relationship through a shared experience of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The title comes from a line in a Dylan Thomas poem - "the boys of summer in all their ruin" - and follows the team not just through victory in the 1955 World Series but the many years that followed the athletes, as they broke down and withered away. Chris Lane will not wither in the moment of his father, Peter.

Peter began by sharing the incomprehensible nature of their grief: "When a life is lost for no purpose or reason, it makes it that much harder to accept. ... What happened to Chris is just not fair, but hanging on to it will not help." He then expanded on the good times, on an infamous 21st birthday trip to Las Vegas, on the multiple "Don't tell dad" or "Don't tell mum" moments his sisters recall, and how despite his studious nature, Chris could be as much a distraction in the classroom as a learner. The father also praised the Harper family, for coming here today, and for taking care of his boy, "for accepting that funny-talking kid as one of your own." Loading Both the Lanes and the Harpers have a hard road ahead. Hopefully they will find their way through today and tonight and tomorrow, and perhaps think forward to the moment the sun rises at dawn on Monday, on what would have been Christopher Ryan Lane's 23rd birthday.

Owing to the 15-hour time difference between Victoria and Oklahoma, at first light in Melbourne it will be 3pm in Duncan. The moment will be a chance to remember him as he would have been, and in a way will always be - as a carefree boy of summer, running and leaping and swinging and catching and smiling in the warmth and light of yet another golden afternoon.