On your 51st birthday

Dear Mom, or rather Mooks.

On this which would have been your 51st birthday, it is our 1st experience of your favourite day without you. Birthdays were a big deal, the ultimate expression of your enigmatic personality, you would start celebrating a week early (sometimes 2) and often a while after. Your excitement and joy at the prospect was infectious, the annual countdown so sweet. More than anything you loved celebrating the birthdays of others by giving, often to those most in need. You quietly donated to charity constantly, and anonymously without your family knowing the true extent. It was vast. You would also always offer words of wisdom on birthdays, sage advice for milestones in cards written with thoughtful intent and reflection.

This makes experiencing your birthday incredibly difficult, the world is profoundly quiet today in your absence. I am thankfully blessed with a partner who shares your special day and so I can enjoy celebration with another fiery Scorpio. Something we all traverse in life is loss, the same way we all bleed, we all hurt. Our humanity is something to connect us, yet too often we allow labels to interject. Today I share a birthday wish for you. I wish that the world emulate a little more kindness and compassion. Particularly in October. Although we’re going for every day.

We desperately need it as things swing towards intolerance, inequality and injustice. I miss you deeply, we all do, but know that you are engineering a universal party. Perfectly organised and orchestrated. The bird-song is louder than usual, chirrups and tweets to bring the day to life and mark the settling in of evening. The Jacarandas, roses and other flowers blooming with excpetional beauty as you smile through them. That the sun is shining with brilliance (and flaming heat) and the clouds dance across the sky in breathtaking formations. These expressions of you are everywhere and although more subtle, if we listen you are there. My gift to you will be channelling sorrow into love and light, allowing you to live through actions of sharing, support, education, laughter, fun and never-ending growth. Since the world can no longer enjoy your company, it will enjoy your memory. Anyone wishing to honour you will know what to do.

A final note, as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and this is the disease which prematurely ended your life I feel the need to share. Breast Cancer charities and initiatives most often, do not directly impact on research, patient care or direct support. Wearing pink doesn’t seem to do anything meaningful in the lives of the women suffering to stay alive. This may not be true for everyone, but certainly for the hundreds of women I encountered during your 4 year fight. Of the group you started treatment with 4/5 of them died. And many other aquaintences in that time. From our experience it’s definitely not about wigs, wings, lipstick or bras. Rather pain, trauma, earth-shattering illness, worry and scars. It is also about spirit, resilience, bravery, power and connection.

I don’t have answers because cancer and big pharma are suffocatingly large. I know that when I see “Breast Cancer” labelled anything I want to be ill becuase no one was there when you were alone. There were no pink organisations who truly helped hold your hand through this journey. Nothing took away the nausea or the pain. Nothing stopped the spread. All the chemo wrecked, the radiation burnt and still you endured. What life does that leave one with? What were all the plans worth?

For those who care to do, I’d suggest leaning into conscious decision-making, into supporting sisterhood with honesty and integrity allowing vulnerability and plain old being-there. Supporting women in all aspects, at all times. Supporting the most vulnerable. Stepping back from the intense churn of every-day working consumer life. It’s not deeply fulfilling if we’re being honest. And it wont care when you die. My mom knew this in her last few years. We can’t change what is, we can only decide how we choose to live with it. I choose to smile, to help, to laugh and love and live as fully as possible.

I love you.

Kaly

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