Jill - A Requiem

JILL - A REQUIEM

(written 7th April 2010)

Tuesday.

Yesterday my friend died.

She wasn't beautiful - except inwardly. But she wasn't 'fat and ugly' as she termed herself in one of our very recent telephone conversations. Actually, she was what my grandfather would have called 'a fine figure of a woman'. In the past, people appreciated that very thin can mean you're coming down with some fatal disease and not likely to live long enough to bring up your children. Yet in 1999, she was able to denigrate herself because of a few kilos.

She was neither very tall nor very short - but she was shorter than she'd been when we first met. The osteoporosis had seen to that. And her several other illnesses were seeing to her being brought down in other ways.

This wasn't Jill's first tough time. When she shared the limelight with me on the Midday Show with Ray Martin on Channel 9 TV it was to show the world at large what can be done to move forward after you've been struck by divorce.

She'd done it tough much of her life. But she'd always kept on keeping on. For years she helped other people move forward after their divorces and widowhood, as the facilitator of a couple of singles social groups.

And she had brought up her two boys. Fine young men now. It was one of them who phoned me with the sad news - as I was driving along North Rd Brighton in fairly heavy traffic (isn't it always, on that road?).

I'm a very careful driver. I want to live as long as possible, now I'm old enough to understand how to get the full measure of living out of every day, every moment. So I pulled to the side of the road before answering my mobile phone.

Sitting at the side of the road with your car still idling, your foot still on the brake, the constant muted roar of hundreds of cars going by, isn't the ideal setting for hearing 'I'm sorry to tell you that my mother died yesterday'.

Wise of them to allow themselves some time to let the grief and loss wash over them before they felt it necessary to start phoning around. That's the right and proper thing to do. The grief of others can never possibly begin to parallel theirs.

Yet it is slightly strange, in this era of instant communication to know a friend has been gone for twenty four or thirty six hours while you went about your own business, not knowing there was a gaping yawning hole where this person had previously resided in your world. My gosh, we all knew Princess Di was dead sooner than that!

I continued the drive to where I was expected, apologizing for being late and asked Bill for a hug, as I explained the reason. Bill works for an organisation that helps others and I know he's experienced many griefs of his own. He is for me, part of what I would perhaps call a 'circle of hearts'. People I know who understand the difficulties we run into in this tough old life. People who'll just hear what you say, without any false histrionics. 'Your friend has died. You just heard about it, coming here? Do you want to sit down and have a coffee and take a breather? Or do you want to get down to business?'

I was grateful for the choice. 'Let's get into it' and we did. His caring matter of factness gave me the option to also 'fall over' when I was ready for it - when the business was done and I needed to sit down and allow myself to move along with the feelings I was experiencing. 'Every five minutes or so a wave of nausea is washing over me Bill'.

It's so strange sitting at a table, drinking a healing beverage, while other people walk in, say hello, pass a neutral comment, not knowing. And you smile and respond to them, suspending your conversation about death and your only truly conscious thought 'My friend is dead. And I only saw her, spent time with her, laughed, read a poem about death, exactly one week ago'!

I'd taken her my poem because her death was to be no surprise to us. She knew she was going. She'd been told not to expect to see Christmas although she was only 54.

Yet so very soon? I'd thought she had at least another two or three weeks; another two or three phone conversations; another week or two to get used to the idea.

I knew she was doing it tough, breathing had become something of a luxury. And she wasn't the type of person to enjoy being pushed around in a wheelchair. When she'd always been her own 'prime mover'.

On Thursday I will go to her funeral. I expect there to be a very large turn out. Jill was a person who lived her life to the full. 'Am I?' she queried, when I put this to her just last week, sitting by her bed. Then only minutes later her great big wonderful full bodied laugh was rolling out, filling with joy the bedroom she was now confined to. How could she not know, not remember? I do hope that my reminding her - 'Yes, I suppose I did' she'd finally said 'When you put it that way' - gave her at least a little joy, put her back in touch with at least a little of the reality of her previous years when that was true.

To me, even on that day she was living her life very fully. Because she was still making her own decisions, deciding not to fight this last battle as if life on this earth is all there is.
She promised to put a flower in the fly wire screen of my front door, if she can, afterwards, 'Just to prove I'm still out there.' We both laughed heartily at her naming of the 'great frustration'. 'That would be the very worst thing to me' she claimed 'if I could see you all, but wasn't allowed to touch'.

I'm waiting for that flower Jill. I'm waiting. Don't you let me down.