Today was a bit surreal. But I made it through, and that has to count for something.

I only mildly embarrassed myself when I was giving blood and I saw the poster calling for stem cell donors and had a cry and the phlebotomist thought I was crying about the needle so she came running over to check on me, and I said, “No, no it’s not the needle, I love the needle, well not love it, I don’t like it at all, I’m not some kind of sickie you know, I’m crying about the stem cells, but not really the stem cells, but about my friend, who is dead, and has been for ages, a year today in fact, and it feel like so long ago and hardly any time all at once.”

So that went well.

And I only told off two innocent people for things that were mildly annoying, but as Liam said about one of them, “Don’t worry Mum, he was a bogan anyway. I knew he was a bogan because he had a whole arm of tattoos, and I’ve found that you don’t have to be a bogan to have a tattoo, but most bogans have tattoos.”

So that went really well.

And I only completely and inappropriately poured my heart out in the comments section of someone else’s blog, but it was Eden’s and she won’t mind. In fact she will totally get it, because Eden gets me, and this deathaversary stuff.

So that’s not so bad.

And then I drank the cherry beer that I’ve been hoarding for a year, over on my mate’s balcony, and I didn’t cry, and we chatted about Hayls and life and death and the afterlife and souls and how people look when they’re dying and then later when they’re dead, and how I met Hayls and how I friended Hayls and how I miss her so much more than I would ever thought was humanly possible, and how I don’t feel even one tiny step closer towards accepting that I won’t ever hear her laugh again.

And then we saw a shooting star, and it was around the T.O.D, and we took it as a sign.

So that was pretty good.

…From The Ashers xx

I was all over the place today.  Crying and not crying.  A throat full of burning lumps like held-back vomit.  Eyes hot and sandpapery.  And that feeling, the heavy-tight feeling, clenching the suboccipital muscles into bundles of gristle, with that impending sense of doom.  But the doom wasn’t impending.  The thing of dreadful fear had already happened.  Still, it was hard to fully inflate my lungs.

I called on BabyMac to find a perfect birthday cake to bake for my friend, ‘cos BabyMac knows a thing or two about sucking the good stuff outa life.

The cake is called Anne.  She’s big and sweet and full of goodness.  Four eggs from happy chooks.  Lashings of magnificent butter worth it’s weight in gold (no, really, it costs the same as gold).  And a shit load of sugar.  My mate would have loved Anne.  Anne has quite a heft about her.  She’s not for the faint of heart.  And my friend was not faint-hearted.  She was a tough bugger.  And she didn’t mind a cake.

So I baked Anne, and I shared her around.  I gave some to my family, some to my neighbours and some to a gorgeous friend.  I didn’t tell them why I’d given them some Anne to feast on, but they sent me back loving messages, and pictures, just the same.  Anne is that kind of cake.  She makes an impact, and I think she likes to get around a bit.  Anne likes making people smile, making them rub their bellies, and push back their chairs as they lick her last crumbs off their plate.  Anne reminds us of what it’s like to be alive, and nourished, under this big wide sky of potential.  Anne reminds us to savour all of the flavours of life, to taste as many different things as we can, and to devour every last morsel.

Turns out, Anne is a lot like my friend.  I think they would have liked each other.

Happy Birthday Hayls.  I saved you a bit of Anne. Bon Apps.

…From The Ashers xx

Thinking of my big hearted friend, today.

Happy Birthday Hayls.

I will play Green Spandex thirty seven times, and probably have a cry.  (I’m already crying.)

Things I would rather be doing:

Choosing you a present.

Talking to you on the phone, or even better, in person.

Discussing what the birthday celebrations are gonna be.

Doing some Jump Dancing.

Teasing your husband because he got you something weird (That of course, you loved. Because: also weird.).

Agreeing with you that your best gift would be to have Ricki here to share the day with you.  If only you could have that.

Shit, I’d even give you a cuddle.

I don’t like this game.

I didn’t like the cancer game either.  I kept on wishing for it to be over so we could get on with our real plans.  I think John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  The same goes for death, I guess.  I remember you saying once, about someone who had died, and who’s loved ones were consoling themselves with the stories about how they had “had a good life” and that they “died on their own terms”, that they were still dead, and dead for a long time.

It is long.

And yet it’s not even a year.

It feels like a lifetime and a minute.

I don’t know what is worse.

I just bloody miss ya.

…From The Ashers xx

Dinner One

When Hayley was scared and about to start the serious chemotherapy, but was acting tough, I went down to Newcastle for a visit.  It was winter, and as Nath would say, “As cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss.”  But Nathan wasn’t with us.  He was back with the kids in the humid faux-winter that is Noosa.  John was working his skinny-whippet arse to the bone in the calm of before, so it was just us.

We mostly stayed inside; by then Hayls was bald and probably feeling the cold more than she would ever let on, and at home we had heat packs that Kay had sewn, either for Hayley, or for Ricki before her.  At home we had thick socks, and cups of tea, and heaters, and the oven.  Always the oven.  We were cooking a slow roasted bit of cow, and when I say we, I mean Hayls, because we all know I don’t give a shit about cooking, and I definitely wouldn’t dare offer to cook a meal for my mate, cancer or not.  Every time she told me to go and check on dinner, or DO things, I quietly shat myself, but I did it anyway because I can be tough when I need to, and I know she hated having to tell me in detail what she wanted done.  Decribing how she wanted the sourdough soaked and squished into dumplings, telling me the amounts of wine and herbs and things to add to the meat, watching from her spot on the couch as I cut up the veggies.  She would have given most anything to be the one doing the work.

Whilst we waited for dinner to cook, we talked about things, old and new.  We laughed at all we had done together so far, and of things yet to hatch.  Swimming through pregnancies, eating at organic cafes, jump dancing, drinking beer, family holidays in tents with leaches and open fires, and others with sticky tropical beaches.  We looked at PET scans on the computer and decided that the white hot cancer was definitely receding, definitely.

Olive and I danced together in the lounge room.  We spun around and jumped to test my pelvic floor to Michael Franti.  “Aunty Ricki loved Michael Franti” we were told, and I wondered if we should turn him off lest he was a bad omen.  And then to Rhys Muldoon and the Poo Song.  We danced and whirled, not because I wanted to- I don’t even like dancing- but because Hayley was puffy and achy-sore, and our dancing made her eyes shine.  I can be tough when I need to.

Eventually we sat down to dinner and the meat fell from the bone and the sauce was like nothing I’ve ever tasted and the dumplings were perfect, and I knew this was a good meal.  A meal of friendship and fear and hope and love.  We drank our cherry beers and I wondered if I would ever have a meal as good as this.  Because it was the meal of before.

Dinner Two

When Hayley had been gone six longshort months we were invited to a dinner in Sydney with a man she had worked for back in those days of endless adrenalin and boundless fun in London, back in the days before the grey shadow of cancer attached itself to her soles.

We were all in the dining room, waiting for Jamie Oliver to arrive, and the energy in the room was strange and it was nervous.  For some of us, the last time we had set eyes on each other was at Hayley’s funeral, and for all of us, the last time we were together was that long long day.  We were a gang, a group of people tied at the hearts by the light of our friend, united in our sadness and with each of us stuck in our memories of the one who would have put us all at ease with a twinkling tease.  What are a group of mourners called?  A sorrow?  We were trying to be bright and smart and funny, but we were, in the end, a sorrow.

He stepped into the room, this man who had made this night happen, but was somehow an outsider, he had a sadness, but he was not in our sorrow.  At least not yet.  I wanted to like him, and I thought I would, but he was an interloper in this party of his own design.

He stepped into the room, this man who had barely met any of us, and walked over to Little Olive.  He bent down to her level, and gently introduced himself, and befriended her with his eyes and his lisp, and in that moment I loved him in a way that made my heart almost rupture, because I knew that this man, on this night, had made a memory for Olive that she would carry with her forever.  A night when so many of the people who loved her Mum hard, and her Mum loved right back, were gathered together, in laughter and fun, the tears buried deep this time.

Eventually we sat down for our meal and it was delicious and plentiful and cooked to perfection.  We sipped our flowing beer and although I knew that this was supposed to be a good meal, a meal of friendships and love and commemoration, every single part that I liked just reminded me of something I didn’t.  Every delicious bite reminded me of a bite that Hayls wouldn’t have.  Every laugh was one not shared with her.  Every bit of light, reminded me of the shadow.

I know this was supposed to be a good meal, but it wasn’t, not really, because it was the meal of after.

A little thing to make it all worthwhile…Bless you J.O.

…From The Ashers xxx

Last Friday we left The Shire to head over to the Sunny Coast hinterland foothills, to the cute little town of Palmwoods.

Gulp.

I haven’t been to Palmwoods since Hayls passed away last year, and quite frankly, I thought I might live the rest of my days without ever facing up to the ‘woods.  Palmwoods IS Hayley, as far as I am concerned.  I had never been there prior to Hayls opening her first cafe, Sister, there and everything in the street just smacks of her.

In the early days of the cafe I used to spend a fair bit of time there, first in offering moral support (sitting on my arse) whilst Ricki did pretty much everything in the fit out, from painting the front counter, to sourcing furniture and doing the artwork for the walls, and then later, as a ‘bum on a seat’ to make the place look busy (so, still sitting on my arse).

Then Ricki died, and my guts went inside-out for a while.  Eventually I went back, and Sister was a marker for lots of things in our lives.  We went there for work dinners, christmas celebrations, lunches with visitors, bonfire parties in the garden next door (which is now a beer garden), and cuppas at the place Jo and John and Hayls shared above the garage.  The night Coco was diagnosed with her PKD we spent the time waiting for blood results at the cafe.  Palmwoods has seen me laugh and cry more than any place I know.

As we took the turn off I wished with all my bits to keep on driving, and instead to spend some quality time with the tragedy that is the Big Pineapple.  We didn’t.  My throat got all hot and sore at the back, like it does when I’m not letting the cries out.

Nath parked MissXtrailia2013 right out the front of The Lane, so there was no more avoiding it.  We were in Palmy.  And Hayls was everywhere and all around me like I knew she would be.  Except she wasn’t.  And my throat went hot again.

We were meeting John and Olive so I guess if they could be here, if they could immerse themselves in a project that has Hayley written all over it, then I guessed I shouldcouldwould too.

Renae’s Pantry and The Lane are amazing.  In a revelation that will shock, I have to tell you, I don’t have the words to describe what an amazing job the Sirl family have done.  In a tiny space and a disused area they have created a bubbling, bumping place to overflow your stomach and your soul with nourishment.  You can do your food shop with Renae, who probably has gorgeous baby Frankie on her chest, you can chat with Benno about the workings of the world, you can get your delish mexican-inspired dinner from Carolyn and the ever smiling Louisa or you can just sit back with your buddies with a beer and listen to some tunes.

The Pantry.. Even the sign is cool

Tasty, locally grown food…. Couldn’t BE fresher

The punters starting to arrive as the sun sets..

Part One of Renae’s Pantry Manifesto

I didn’t want to go there, but pretty soon I didn’t want to leave.  Renae said to me that Hayley pushed her to do something like this, and that she is all around.  I don’t know about that, but I do know that she would have loved everything about The Lane and the Pantry.  The integrity, the quality of the produce, the creation of such a vibrant, lively, happy place.   All a bit like her really.

Gotta go.  My throat is hurting again.

Love your work guys.

All the rest of you: go there, I don’t know what’s better: the food, the company, the shopping or the wonderful sense of being part of an idea who’s time has come.

….From The Ashers xx

I know I said I wouldn’t post any more sad shit, but I feel like crap today, so I guess I might as well bring you all down with me.  Last one, I promise*.

Today is the come-down I guess.

The day when you realise that you have to live the rest of your life without your mate.

That you can’t call her when you’re in a restaurant to ask WTF some fancy-schmancy ingredient is.  That you can’t send a scathing text to her when you see someone wearing a terrible outfit combo (and you can’t say it to anyone else or they’ll think you’re a bastard, which is fairly accurate.)  That you can’t send her a pic of the Cadbury Dairy Milk Family Block you are about to eat, knowing she will text straight back telling you you’re a bogan.

That you won’t hear her laugh again.

Or see her bloody big smile.

That you won’t be having all those family holidays you were planning, once she got well.

That you won’t be going to New York together for her 40th.  She won’t be having a 40th.

The hole that is in my chest right now just feels so big I don’t know how it will ever heal.  I know all the platitudes.  I’ve done this all before.  Several times.

I’m just wrung out today.

So if I haven’t already bummed out your day enough, check out this song by Xavier Rudd that played at the funeral.  It was written for Hayley I reckon.

*This might be a lie.  I will try though..