Deepikar Kumar returned to her home this afternoon – thus giving her 27 “brothers and sisters” the chance to say their final farewells to her, before she is laid to rest tomorrow.

Dee, as she’s known to her friends, had lived at St Christopher’s Home in Naulu, on the outskirts of Suva, since 2011.

She was living there because, since 1968, St Christopher’s has thrown open its doors to hundreds of Fijian children who are, for one reason or another, in desperate need of protection or support. Dee was in need of that kind of help, too.

And Dee’s 27 “brothers and sisters” are the Fijian children – ranging from toddlers to 18-year-old girls – who are finding sanctuary there right now.

Had tragedy not struck, Dee was due to move out of St Christopher’s this coming Monday, and move into a university hostel.

That was not to be, of course.

She died in Hamilton last weekend after a motel swimming pool accident.

Dee was flown back to Fiji this morning, accompanied by Mother Keleni, the Christchurch-based Mother Superior of the Community of the Sacred Name, the Anglican order of nuns who’ve looked after all those kids at St Christopher's Home since Day One. And by Glenn and Sandy Williams, with whom she’d stayed in New Zealand for her last seven weeks.

Deepikar’s birth mother had died when Dee was just five. Her next of kin – her grandmother and her only aunty – had died, too. That’s when St Christopher’s had come to her rescue.

Then, there were those few weeks she’d spent in New Zealand with Glenn and Sandy.

They were the only taste of the love of a good mum and dad that she’d had.

Well, there mightn’t be any dads at St Christopher’s…

But if you’d been there when Dee came back to Suva and St Christopher’s Home, you’d have seen, and felt, the love the sisters and the kids had for her.

At Nausori airport, all the Anglican priests of Suva were there waiting in their white shirts and black sulus, along with some of her St Christopher’s family, to escort her back to the home.

She was carried into the long hall at that home, which is laid with tapa cloth, and then the Rev Sue Halapua (who is the chaplain to the sisters at St Christopher’s) began a service of worship.

One of her aims was to try to help the littlies comprehend why Dee had gone from their midst – but had not gone from the love, protection and presence of the Lord.

The children sang choruses to Dee for perhaps 90 minutes: Be still and know… I bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.

The sisters and priests of the Diocese of Polynesia – and other Fijians she touched – will hold a prayer vigil for her through the night, and she will be taken from the home to the nearby St Christopher’s church at 8am tomorrow.

Her funeral service begins at 9:30am, and she will be buried after that.