So three weeks ago, when Lara found herself in the sudden and unimaginable situation of filling in a death certificate for the love of her life, her pain was intensified when she and the funeral director had to cross out the box for "husband" on Elise's death certificate. Elise Ryan, left, was killed in a crash in Sydney. She is pictured with Lara. Credit:Facebook "If marriage was available, I would have chosen to be married," Lara said. "My parents have a beautiful marriage, my partner's parents had a beautiful marriage. They were very proud of their families, and we would have done the same thing ourselves if we had had the option. She was not my de facto. She was my wife." Lara and Elise's world came crashing down on the morning of February 8, just three weeks after Elise had given birth to their second daughter, Skylar.

That Monday morning, Elise had walked Ivy across the road to drop her off at daycare near their home, while Lara stayed behind with Skylar. As Elise was walking across a pedestrian crossing to return home, she was struck by a car and knocked to the ground, Lara said. Lara thought it was odd when Elise had not returned home nearly an hour after she'd left. "I went out the front door to go looking for her, and I saw all the police tape. I went to the childcare centre and just said 'Is Elise still inside?' And I knew by the look that the teachers gave me," Lara said. Lara rushed to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where Elise had been taken, unsure about the extent of her injuries.

The shock of the accident was compounded by the initial confusion she encountered surrounding their relationship. "I had a baby in my arms and I was at the entrance to the emergency room, going, 'You've got to let me in, you've got to let me in, I know it's my wife.' " After explaining her relationship several times, Lara was allowed in to see Elise before she died. Once the initial confusion had been cleared up, Lara said the hospital staff and police were "just amazing". "We were able to help at least nine lives with the organs that she donated, but that was all given to me as a decision to make, even with all of her [Elise's] family being there with me," Lara said. "They [the hospital staff] did not discriminate, they spoke directly to me, they have let me make decisions. I think if this had happened 10 years ago it could have been a very different story and we've come a really, really long way."

But she said it was the start of a painful journey. She says she has spent the weeks since Elise's death ringing lawyers, government agencies and their insurance company, explaining the nature of thier relationship. "For anyone - whether you're gay, straight, a son, a daughter, a sister, a partner - it's a very trying thing to tell the same story over and over again and go through forms and red tape and not fitting into particular boxes," Lara said. "I just remember crying to my mum and saying 'If I had a proper marriage certificate, this would not be so hard. It would just be accepted.' "If I had a husband, I would just say 'My husband has passed away,' and people would get that.

"But every person I've spoken to today, I've had to explain the back story, that she was my partner, de facto, and that hurts, because I don't see her as my de facto, I don't see her as a partner. I see her as my wife. We were married in our eyes." In her frustration and grief, Lara sat down and wrote a simple Facebook post explaining what had happened. Her post wasn't to get sympathy, but to explain the realities of how Australia's marriage laws were affecting real people. "Because love is love and we should celebrate it and encourage it always. The world is harsh enough," she wrote. Her post on Monday has since been shared nearly 45,000 times and rising. Lara and Elise didn't consider themselves political, and Lara now says Elise would be "rolling her eyes up there".

"But I think a big thing for me is that, if marriage in the truest sense was an option for us, we definitely would have taken that up, and we never had that option," Lara said. "We made [a] family. We didn't need that bit of paper. We and everyone who knew us and loved us knew that we were a family. "But it would have been a lovely thing. If that was legally binding, it secures us as a family, it secures my children's future, and in situations such as this it would have made things easier. "In the distress and grief and black hole that I'm in, I wouldn't have had to tell the back story to this to every single person that I spoke to. It's not an easy process for anyone, wherever you're at in life, but I think it would have been a lot different." A NSW Police spokesman said inquiries were continuing into the cause of the crash. No charges have been laid.