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Saying goodbye to a wonderful friend

January 12, 2009 By

paulaA very good friend of mine went into palliative care last monday.  She’s been my good friend, confidante, teacher, mentor, advisor, support and strength for eighteen years.  She taught me to have confidence in who I am, to see life in a positive light, to see the best and have belief in people, how to laugh and enjoy living.  I owe her so much.

For seven years she has fought cancer.  She has done everything she could to beat this revolting disease and in the end it has won over her body.  Her mind will never be conquered.  Even when I rang her and asked how she was she answered “Great”.

I heard that she went into palliative care last tuesday and flew down to see her on the thursday. Thursday was a good day/bad day. I started it on only about 4 1/2 hours sleep, which was not good but unavoidable.

I arrived at the Palliative care unit just after 9.00am I was able to spend about three and a half hours with Paula, just holding her hand and talking.  I went down there thinking that I had so much to say, and in the end what mattered was simply:

Thank you

I love you

I’ll miss you

I’ll see you again one day

And a lot of swearing and crying in private over how unfair it is. She’s only 52 and will never see her sons get married, know her grandchildren or any of the other things that she should still have time to do. And they won’t get to meet an amazing lady.

I didn’t fly out of Melbourne until after 6.00pm, so had a bit of time sitting in the Virgin Blue lounge (almost as good as Qantas Club) before the flight. I was emotionally and physically exausted by the time I got home and am still feeling quite wrung out for a few days.

Update: Paula passed away two weeks later on 22 Jan 2009.

Filed Under: Family, Health, Venting

And now he’s not being deployed…

August 29, 2008 By

There’s an old saying in the military that goes “Greatcoats on, greatcoats off” meaning that decisions change constantly.  And that’s what’s happened here.  With only four days to go, Eddie’s deployment has been cancelled.

However… watch this space!  There may be another deployment coming sometime in the future.  The good side is that we have a lot of things done now that needed to be done, and if/when he goes sometime later then we don’t have to worry about them!

Filed Under: Family, Venting

Employment and a posting?

June 4, 2008 By

I got the news yesterday that the job I had applied for recently, that I really wanted, I didn’t get. I was ‘outstanding’ on my application and interview, couldn’t fault me at all and I should be applying for higher level positions. However…. the job went to someone who had done Executive Assistant work for the last 20 years! So we’re looking at the possibility of me not having work again when my contract finishes at the end of june.

To top yesterday off, I was waiting for Eddie after work, and his boss mentioned that Eddie’s career manager wants to post him again. His position is being upgraded to the next higher rank wef next january, and they want to post someone else in on promotion. Which means reposting Eddie. He’s known about it for a few weeks, but didn’t tell me because he knew I’d freak. Which I did. He was planning on telling me when it was decided one way or another, so I wouldn’t be worried and stressed in the meantime.

It was literally a year ago that Eddie rang to tell me we were posting back to Canberra.

I’ve just been speaking to Eddie about the posting stuff, and we’ve decided that if the army insists on posting us, then we’ll ask to stay in Canberra first, if they have to post us out then we want to go to either Brisbane or Queenscliff in Vic. Either way, we’ll have family there and people we know. My sister and BIL are moving to Brisbane around Nov this year, from London, and I have other rellies in northern NSW. The in-laws are all down in VIC.

If they can’t post us to any of those three locations then he’ll discharge. It’s literally worth about an extra $100,000+ for Eddie to do another three years, we don’t want to lose that by being too inflexible. All three of those locations have heaps of positions for his rank and trade.

Filed Under: Family, Moving, Venting

Kids and bullying again

June 4, 2008 By

Where do I start? These last two weeks are kind of a blur! We’ve all had the flu, Eddie was first, then Dian, in fact she didn’t go to school at all last week, then I had/have it. Thankfully we’re all on the mend.

Dian’s been getting bullied at school, we think that is under control at the moment and things are looking up, and then she came home yesterday with this story. She goes to school on the bus, and recently has been sitting next to a 15yo (possibly mentally disabled or autistic) boy, J. I’m not sure how severe his impairment is. Anyway, she’s been telling us that he likes her, and he used to like another girl in her class. That’s bad enough, so I’ve been telling her to sit somewhere else. Yesterday, the only seat available on the bus home was next to Jack.

He told her that tomorrow he was going to bring a knife with him, told her she had to come to his party so he could flog her, and then proceeded to push her head down to her knees and sit on her five or six times! Apparently the kids sitting near told him to stop but he wouldn’t, and the bus driver didn’t notice.

I’ve reported it to Dian’s school, and the deputy principal rang J’s school. They are all horrified, as they should be, and we’ve been told that we can report it to the police if we choose to, as an assault. I’ve chosen not to at this point, but if he ever touches Dian again then it will definately be reported!

Filed Under: Employment, Family, Moving, Venting
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