The West Chapel at Pinnaroo cemetery was filled with tears and laughter on Saturday morning as hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of two-year-old Sam Trott.
The little autistic boy wandered off from his Landsdale home on December 9 and his body was found in a nearby lake the next day.
While he was missing hundreds of volunteers turned up to search for him, and on Saturday many of them came to his funeral.
The chapel has 200 seats and there was standing room only when the funeral got under way, with the service being relayed to big screens in the courtyard where another couple of hundred of people had gathered to say farewell.
His mother Lyndal spoke through tears of her memories of Sam.
"He loved strawberries and his face was always covered with strawberry," she said.
"He was born on my birthday. He loved bubble bath and didn't like having his hair brushed. He had sparkling eyes. He loved going anywhere in the car.
"He never called me 'Mummy' but I knew he was trying really hard - and I was happy with that."
She said that Sam loved his therapists and his brother and that he loved the swimming pool and walks in the park.
"He worked so hard to learn the simplest of things. He was just perfect. He was Sam," she said.
Sam's father Matthew said his son had taught them all the true meaning of hard work and inspired everyone never to give up.
"I spent so many hours planning a bright future for him - never did I imagine an ending like this," he said.
"He showed us it was possible for a two-and-a-half year old boy to unite a community. Despite his condition he was special and everyone knew it."
Mourners laughed and cried as a video was played showed Sam taking his first steps, jumping on a trampoline and raiding the pantry.
As the service progressed, a handful of little children scampered around the front of the chapel, spending a lot of time close to the small flower-covered coffin.
Afterwards Sam's parents and brother Thomas, along with family and friends, went outside the chapel and released balloons into the sky as Australian Idol contestants Chris and Courtney Murphy sang Sweet Child O'Mine.
Sam Trott would have celebrated his third birthday in February.
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