LINDY Dunn admits she got emotional when she read about a proposal to honour the people killed in the Currowan bushfire crisis.
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The memorial is proposed as part of a major master plan for the Conjola area.
Lindy, a member of the Conjola Recovery Group who played a major role in the formation of the masterplan, says the memorial promises to be something special.
The memorial will go into a shallow part of the lake.
"Three burnt trees with traditional designs on them to go with the names of the people we lost will go into the lake," she said.
The name of prominent Conjola resident Laurie Andrews is one of three people to be included in the memorial.
The various NSW government departments, like fisheries, have approved the memorial.
"You are meant to kayak around and read the words and look at the designs on it," Lindy said.
"The proposal talks about how the memorial might be gone in 50 years but all the damage as around will also be gone."
There will be sculptures in Hoylake Grove Reserve as well.
More details of the memorial are part of the submission for the masterplan, which is currently before Shoalhaven City Council.
"The memorialising of large scale traumatic events is an important part of the recovery processes," the submission reads.
"To give space to a range of responses it should be done in a subtle way at a series of different scales."
The overall memorial will feature personal tributes from artists from the Conjola community in a contemplative garden.
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The three burnt trees, placed in the Yooralla Bay area, will be one of the memorial's major aspects.
"The memorial serves as a reminder of the lake as the centre of life at Conjola, a reminder that we are here because of the lake with water connecting everything," the submission reads.
It's fitting that burned logs will form part of the memorial, as set out in the proposal.
"A simple but strong gesture is required - a collection of recovered charred logs included and erected in a grouping at the edge of the shallows in Yooralla Bay," the submission outlines.
"Such logs have always been the symbol of the recovery from the fires.
"These logs contain the memories of the fires themselves, in the charred outer bark.
"The memories of the people whose lives were lost during the fire will be acknowledged by carving their names in the base of the trunks.
"The memories of the elders of this land will be carved into the totems," the submission added.
The base is to be an artificial reef so as to provide additional habitat for fish.
"The hollows will fill with sea birds, nesting and roosting in the sun," according to the submission.
In the future, the memorial will be gone.
"And after some significant time it [the memorial] too will erode, weather and pass," the submission added.
"By then no longer needed, healing is done and it too can become a collective memory of the lake people."
