My kingdom for more life for you

My friend lost a battle today with a futile dysfunction that had no place occupying her body and her blood. It seems leukaemia is a determined disease and at last it has won, but to what end, other than breaking the hearts of everyone who has ever had the good fortune to know my friend. 

For no good reason this purposeless disease has left three beautiful children and a husband lost, and a mother having to say goodbye to her daughter, and this one friend bewildered and shocked at a world without her in it. 

I am new to this, I’ve been lucky so far, everyone has got well again, even she was well for four extra years thanks to her sister’s bone marrow. But here we are, the world seeming upside down and back the front. So many have been through this and lived with it, and I dare say I will too, but it is surreal and wrong and I wish it were a bad, bad dream.  

Kim Edwards, 16th July 1966 - 6th January 2018

I want her back and I didnt even see her every day, I can’t even imagine her family’s pain if this is how I feel, but thus was the depth of her. I know everyone says when someone dies that we almost canonise them, but she was always angelic to me. She was patient and kind, and generous, so generous. She didn’t judge or hold grudges, she was different to most. She was an extraordinary human being. And I feel so honoured that I knew her, if only for twelve short years. And they were too short, but I treasure the memories, the pragmatic and open way she spoke. Her laugh, her huge heart and the way she coaxed you off the edge with a simple ‘right?’ at the end of her sentences, gently pushing you towards a smarter thought. Thoughts that came so naturally to her. 

I am angry though, so angry that they couldnt save her, that “they” didnt deem her acute, she was acute to us! She was so acute whoever didn’t think so, so acute to us St Vincent’s, and your b/s about not enough beds! And hey, you think she may have been acute now that she didnt make it? I know she wouldnt approve of me being mad, it was not her style, but I would fight for her if she’d let me, and I’ll fight now, I’ll rage against the universe that decided this was a person that’s time was up. 

But you did fight my darling friend, you fought so hard, and now you can rest. And I hope you were at peace as much as this nonsensical proposition could leave you with. I miss you so bad already and we live in different cities. But I always relied on your next visit, our next wine under fairy lights, or you sleeping on our couch and being gorgeous to my boys, as only you, in your natural confidence could. You were so comfortable in your own skin, you put everyone you met at ease in theirs, even 7 year old boys were taken with your charm. 

I would do anything to have been able to comfort you as you did me, and save you the way you saved me. O if only, if only I could have brushed the hair from your face and made it all go away. O what I would give, what we all would have given to give you more life. 

There are no more words that can describe the hole you have left my darling, beautiful friend, Kim. I will miss you forever, I love you. I will try to live in a way that honours you and the inspiration you have been to me and to so many. Rest now, rest. 

Update: I am riding 40km in gear Up Girl to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation, would appreciate anything you can give to support: please donate here and stop this senseless disease: https://give.everydayhero.com/au/nicole-does-40km-gearup-girl

 

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Dedicated to Boston

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10 movies that made me PML

Milton and his stapler from Office Space

I adore laughter and frankly life is far too serious for me most of the time. So I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to see the funny side of things, even in corporate meetings, what can I say? wisdom and humour don't always go hand in hand. I wouldn't go so far as to say I am a funny person, one of my particularly funny friends often reminds me of this, as does my hubby, but you know, points for trying please. For instance I am no where near as funny as The Bloggess or Joe Hildebrand, although putting those two in the same sentence is sort of funny. 

Anyway my point is, not for me to make you laugh directly but indirectly and so I share my top ten movies that have made me howl, roar and p1ss my p@nts laughing; they are in no particular order otherwise my shanty town for a brain would get too lost: 

1. a recent one - The Five-Year Engagement

2. a modern day monty python type one - The Trip

3. Does Seinfeld's Ugly Baby episode count? (breathtaking!)

4. a dysfunctional one - Home for the Holidays

5. another dysfunctional one - Sideways

6. in the words of my hubby, a really weird one - I heart huckabees

7. Ok because I should have said ten - Knocked Up

8. because will ferrell just is - Step Brothers

9. because Maude is my hero - The Big Lebowski

10. because I worked in Advertising - Crazy People

11. and finally because Seinfeld is not a movie - Office Space

Laugh a little - stuff that - laugh until you snort your drink out your nostrils! Research loosely shows it improves your immune system and reduces stress - so worth a bit of germy liquid spraying on your lucky dinner guest me thinks... or in my case I'll be targeting my really "funny" friend - you know who you are. 

P.S. And if you do crave the more serious side of happiness - check out yesterday's post where a real researcher has unlocked the secret that happy people inherently know. 

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Small Bump, Huge tears: the agony of miscarriage

I am sharing this song because although it is likely to do to you what it did to me, namely make you spontaneously burst into tears, which arguably isn't that pleasant, it is too beautiful not to. 

The scans of my unmade plans

What an unbelievably rare talent, Ed Sheeran is that he can capture so perfectly the hope and love that happens even before you meet a baby. It defies all logic but nonetheless the love is palpable and I would know as I only got to meet two of my four. 

I know I am one of the lucky ones but even so I still remember the shocking emotional agony of my miscarriages. There are people all around the world trying to define at what point divided cells become life - for me it is that first magical moment of connection. Eight weeks later when a once beating heart was no longer, there was no comfort in knowing how early or how developed or not, because a new life had died before it had lived, and all the hopes and dreams I had attached to this very small person died suddenly with it. 

My comfort came in the form of another two babies and although I knew they were different and unique lives, they were still new and perfect with wonderous eyes and gorgeous potential. But this song reminds me of the cruelty of miscarriage and the absurdity of losing the love of your life and all of those precious unmade plans...

"Hold on tight, it'll be alright" xxx

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A Beautiful Beginnings End: RIP Jill Meagher

Street Art Tribute in Hosier Lane, Melbourne, Source: HeraldSun

Her dreams were those of any beautiful young girl, her vibrancy and light existence marred only by a shimmer of doubt that flashed through her mind when a stranger began talking to her on the way home early last Saturday morning. That doubt grew into unthinkable horror when Jill Meagher's circumstances conspired against her and a predator, a man so lost and damaged, thought nothing of ending her near perfect life. A life with a long future of love and adventure and moments. A lifetime of moments he felt were less worthy, than a vulgar, disturbed one made up of power and violence. 

Source: The Vine Live

I don't understand this man, not even close. What megalomania takes hold to not understand another human's huge and majestic existence? How could he not see her, and how she extended into the past, the future and into all those that know and love her in the present? Was it the brilliance of her that made him hate her enough to end her beautiful life? I don't know and like the thousands that walked down Sydney Road as a tribute to this senseless loss, I will probably never know what possessed the man that did this to Jill. 

Tribute March for Jill Meagher, Brunswick, Source: HeraldSun

All we are left with are questions unanswered, shock and grief. And a desperate scrambling to pull together, to reassure each other that humanity is not lost. That there are more of us who feel each other, empathise with and respect each other, than those that do not. I want to hope, I want to send thoughts of strength and love to Tom Meagher and the McKeon Family, but I am collapsed in grief at the absurdity of this life. That this can happen, and does happen more often than we know, breaks my heart. 

Tears replace the space where hope lived, so for now I cry with you in your great loss. And hope that maybe one day the lyrics of this song will make sense of the senselessness of Jill's end. 

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"

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UPDATE: The Burden of True Love: Dedicated to Marina Krim in her unthinkable loss

I seem to have an unhealthy obsession with death of late. It is quite disturbing and not really conducive to a light and smiling existence. Instead I have strange visions of myself being injured or worse one of my beautiful boys. I try to tell myself that living in fear of death is a waste of life and I know it is, I can feel it is, but now I have so much to lose, so much to miss in the growth of my two little toddler boys into young men and god permitting, adults. I watched Shadowlands tonight, and I knew I shouldn't but it is a beautiful story and a true one. Non-fiction is always more magnetic to me but unfortunately usually contains the real tragedy of the absurdity of our lives.

C.S. Lewis although a committed Christian and successful author had never really fallen in love. His life was perfectly balanced, clinical and in control. Until he met Joy quite late in life. Her massive IQ and wit derailed his limited existence and he fell hard and passionately in love with her. But by some strange fate it turned out she had cancer and died only four years after they were married. His life was turned upside down and back the front and was taken completely out of his hands. In spite of this he recognises that the happiness she brought was worth the pain. I love the part where he says to her on her deathbed "I love you Joy, you make me so happy, I never knew I could feel such happiness... you are the truest person I know." 

What is more devastating than their love cut far too short is Joy having to leave her boys, when still only boys very much still in need of their Mum, behind alone, without her. As a Mum I find this almost unbearable to watch let alone imagine for my own boys. 

I know that people somehow survive this kind of loss, the pain, although never completely gone, reduces and life crowds in to distract you. But I buckle in two at the thought, I don't seem to be made of the stuff that those that continue are. I feel like my insides are custard, probably soft and malleable through never having been through anything even close to this harrowing. 

I only wish that my fears will work to drive my enjoyment of the moments I am having this second, when my boys still love cuddles and kisses, and say things like "You are my true love" or yell with glee, "Mummy, Mummy" on my arrival home from work, running at me with arms splayed ready to be easily swung in the air, my face buried in their soft necks breathing in their innocence before bursting a raspberry onto their perfect skin, and drinking in the erupting giggles that this all imbues. 

Like C.S. Lewis, my nightmares will probably never cease, but if the worst were to happen and I end up broken by grief I hope I remember they were worth the pain, every precious second knowing them is better than a pain-free existence never having looked into their eyes of joy and wonder, and realising they are the joy and wonder of my life. 

Sending Kevin and Marina Krim the strength no Mother can imagine having,
as you face the most terrible of losses x

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MISSING TV REMOTE BREAKS HEART: A Mum's Grief

My little people fixated by their beloved Brum.

We couldn’t find the TV remote to turn off a morning of 'Big Cook, Little Cook', 'Raa Raa, the noisy little lion', 'Show me, Show me' to name just a few. This single small failure was about to set off a tidal wave of emotion. Boom had taken the boys to the park and I was pottering about with the overly-enthusiastic soundtrack of children's shows playing in the background. Then this music came on, it was clever, funny orchestral music used to introduce a small vintage car that happens to be the local superhero in Birmingham, his name is Brum.

Brum has been pivotal in my life as he has captured the imagination of both my boys in a way no other show has. Initially Bang was very taken with 'In the Night Garden', but by the time Crash came along, Brum was and still is the preferred viewing choice of both. Other shows come and go, but Brum fighting baddies, saving kittens and flying through the air to stop out-of-control trains never grows tired.

Brum taught both my boys how to eat, his attention-demanding antics, hilarious music, sound effects and cute storylines allowed food to enter their mouths without resistance. All sorts of healthy items passed their lips as they smiled at Brum.

This cheery little fellow is perfectly designed to make people smile, unfortunately for me, today he has had the opposite affect and I am a whimpering mess. As I leave behind a couple of years of being a SAHM and return to work I now realise that I may never see another episode. I may never be able to watch on as my boys eager eyes take in the action, frowning when there’s danger or smiling at the happy ending. I won’t see them wave at Brum the way the cast do or clap at the end once he’s saved the day. And I will never hear that haunting Oboe trill at the start of a new adventure.

It is the end of an era and I know we will all adjust and get used to seeing each other less but for today I am just going to sit here and cry my eyes out because time moves too fast and I wish I could stay home, me and my little men together forever.

© MyIdeaLife, 2012, All Rights Reserved

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