Friday, February 22, 2013

28 Days

So I'm near on 28 days of Greatness and there is much to write about.
I'll start with the sadness. As a teenager, I had a close friend who was beautiful, tall, quiet and kind. I loved her, envied her (she was seriously beautiful) and made some pretty awesome memories with her. When she turned 18 I was still almost 6 months away from 'adulthood', so I found myself spending more time with her younger sister, the gorgeous Kate. Not quite as beautiful as her big sister, but  gorgeous, fun and warm. She became my friend.
Over the years I have become quite close with all of Megs family, they are beautiful and kind people. The same time Maggie was born, Kate was diagnosed with a brain tumour, about the same time I started blogging. I started emailing Kate, telling her silly stories of my life as a MILF.
Mother Incredibly Longing Freedom.
We maintained our correspondence, sporadically, and the last I saw of her was at Donno's funeral. She was cheeky, kind, warm and clever. Not to mention beautiful.
She died last week aged 31. It's taken my breathe away. My eyes leak and my heart hurts to write it, to say it, to know it. It seems impossible. Implausible. She was wonderful and she was young. So young.
I went to Melbourne for her funeral. It was sad, and beautiful. I feel a heaviness I didn't expect, a sadness I can't comfort. She was so much, and still she died.
I will remember her forever as a cheeky smile and a twinkling eye. Her Mother held me, after the funeral service, and her strength was enormous, her maternal instinct so huge that she wanted to comfort, which she did. This is being a Mother. For the first time in a long time I was wordless.
As an ode to Kate, I will honour her with 2 completely awkward moments that occurred whilst away. The first was while sharing a hotel room with my Mother, we decided to watch a movie in house. The Kids Are Alright. Spoiler alert. Terrific film, except for the completely excruciating scene where the lesbians are getting down and dirty with one another whilst watching male gay porn. Awkward. Say no more. The second was on my return home, my plane stopped in Alice Springs for 30 minutes. My lovely big brother, the chef, came out to meet me for the stopover. I was showing him some photos on my phone I had of some amazing mexican food (Mama Sita, Collins St? Shit Hot) I had eaten the night before. I was flipping through them happily when we stumbled upon a self portrait of my bottom that I had taken 3 nights earlier, as for reasons only clear to me I had gotten a spray tan (what's the etiquette on funerals & spray tans? Is there one? If so, I was unaware, and goddamn it I wanted to look healthy, and brown, ok?) and after a few drinks with an old friend I had staggered back to my hotel room (sans Mother, she arrived the next day) and taken a few selfies. Including one of my really white bottom. My big brother isn't a huge talker, so he didn't really ask any questions, but it was seriously....awkward.
I still haven't deleted the photo and I'll never be able to delete the memory, nor sadly will he.
I'm not sure how to end this, except to say 28 days is a short month, but much has happened. I've never felt so grateful or blessed with what and who I have. Not to mention I should seriously think about copywriting my MILF acronym, awesome.




2 comments:

  1. I know I shouldn't be "jealous" and I can't glam that up by saying "envious" so I'm thinking that instead of being either of those I will simply aspire to write half a well as you do Clare. I'm very sorry about your friend but as always you have written about it beautifully and had me laughing out loud.

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  2. I'm so pleased to have been able to share the vision of my white bottom with you Leigh xo
    ps please keep the comments coming, they are very good for my expanding ego ;)

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