I have successfully made my trip to Adelaide. From the start of the trip to arriving home, the kindness, generosity and support of the people I interacted with was so much appreciated.
My cousin organised an upgrade to business class for the flight to Adelaide. To be able to stretch out and have a lovely breakfast served was magnificent. i also received a $300 complimentary lunch or dinner voucher to one of the posh restaurants in Grote St from Qantas. It was so I could take my parents out for a memorable goodbye meal. That blew me away.
Family drove me about, accommodated my meal and rest needs and we chatted creating so many fun memories. I caught up with my 2 girlfriends. One was not planned – cos I had lost her contact details, but my amazing father had still kept the piece of paper that I had given him more than 5 years ago with her phone number and address on, so at the last minute, we were able to catch up. What an amazing father! My 2 friends in Adelaide are the sort who I catch up with infrequently but when we do catch up it is like carrying on conversation from yesterday. They both are special people that I met nearly 30 years ago and to include them in my “farewell tour” made it even more significant.
Reliving memories are fun. Our family has a mad sense of humour, so it always is a time of laughing about the silly and somewhat inane antic we did as kids. Driving around Adelaide was a new experience in that I knew it was the last time I would physically see the place. Consequently I had to look at everything and appreciated what I loved about the place – the dry harsh Australian environment, dead grass, hot sun, dry winds, beautiful old sandstone houses, park lands, lack of peak hour traffic, unpretentious nature of a capital city, flat blue sea. I felt like I was drinking in the sights with a new fascination.
The plane trip was also strange. This was the last time I planned to go in a plane. What would planes look like in the future? What would be travel be? Flying along looking down at cloud formations, rivers, dry desolate farms. Wow, it was all spectacular.
Then it all finished with kissing my father, step mother, 2 brothers and niece goodbye. A couple of them will be visiting later in the month, but otherwise, this was the last physical contact I was having with these people. That is strange experience. I have been through that with my sister, and other people. We all have probably at sometime known we would never see someone again. And it is harder no doubt for the person who is staying behind. This was my first time as the person going. What should I say? have I said enough? what do I say as a thank you to the person who has has done so much and meant so much to me for my life? do I need to say thank you? is there other more important things to say? what is important? I still don’t know the answer, but in the split seconds that it happens it goes all too fast and afterwards, the words even seem shallow and polite. I can so relate to the stories from the Victorian bushfire – where family members rang each other to day goodbye before they thought they would be burnt alive. The words said at this time have great importance, but the comfort comes from the lifetime before of experiences, memories, conversations, sharing etc that really cant be summarised in those short moment. Also the great hope I have that all the people said goodbye to I will be interacting with in heaven at sometime soon to come. Thank God for that. it just doesn’t end “just like that”, it is a continuum at another level.
Now that I am home, I have the funeral details to finalise and a lot of that tedious financial paperwork to reorganise. Once these jobs ar done, I will be able to relax. Thankfully I still have the strength to do it. I need people to transport me about, to mull over decisions with and keep me focused. The pain is increasing each day, but it is self inflicted as I spend long periods sitting and walking, so the tumours get really cranky as the day goes on. I treasure the evenings when I can lie down and the nights that I get relief from the constant aching. I have been increasing the fentanyl slowly, but at this stage I need clarity of mind and physical energy to get about. When the end of the month comes, I hope to have all organised to the level that I can relax and afford myself adequate pain relief and rest.