Saying goodbye to a wonderful friend

Posted under Family, Health, Venting by Melinda

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A 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.