a February in Berwick...

I read a short story by Alex Miller the novelist some years ago -or was it an article in the paper? yes I think it was.. anyway, he wrote about his 9 year old daughter asking him how he knew where to start each time he sat down at his desk.

write the truest thing he told her.. write the truest thing..

with that in mind i'm here to say that there are two true things in my head and they've been there all week... my father in law's death and the Victorian bushfires..



Jack was due to have open-heart surgery later this month but died in hospital on Weds 4th February. He'd been admitted the day before suffering from a severe nose bleed. Peter stayed most of that night with him and though Jack was confused when he left to come home he thought that his dad would be okay. Once the bleeding had stopped, his condition was expected to stabilise and then he'd be discharged. The bigger worry Peter thought he'd have to face was in telling him he couldn't go back to his unit and would need to move into a place where he could receive nursing care. Jack was stubborn. How would he take the news? Instead as it happened there was no such conversation. His Dad's last words in the hospital that night were 'This place is a shambles" The following evening Jack died. A doctor raced into the waiting room and told Peter they'd lost his pulse. Earlier the doctor had let P know that if Jack was to have a heart attack in the hospital neither she nor the nurses would try to resuscitate him. The chances of his survival and recovery were not good. Peter called me in tears. His Dad had just gone. I took in what I could. An ending and a beginning. Dan was in his room and I told him. He was shocked but calm. Pip screamed when I rang ..really screamed and I felt as if I'd speared her. Why wasn't I crying? I was glad Chris was with her. In the background I could hear him calling out what's up? what's up? and then his voice was close and I knew he must have been holding her..After a while they hung up. Then I tried the boys. Two had their phones turned off so I left messages to ring me..urgently. I didn't want anyone to hear the news second-hand. Their responses when I did tell them were somehow the same. Shock followed by a sad kind of realism. He'd made it to 91. Dan and I drove to the hospital together. Miles Davis played in the background. By the time we arrived in casualty it was after 9. Jack had passed away at 7. We met Peter in the chapel on the ground floor- "you won't want to see Dad, he looks terrible.." But I did want to see him.. I needed to say goodbye..
Noone about in the corridors -cold glass, plaster-grey walls and dry rustred paint-drops on the vinyl floor leading into the ward.
A young nurse with love in her eyes showed me to where he was.
In a corner of the 4-bed room, curtains drawn and in the semi-dark Jack lay waiting. A woman in the opposite bed moaned. Wrapped tightly in the sheets, Jack looked like an old athlete. A runner who'd just finished a race. Straining forwards off the pillow, eyes closed, chin taut, bristles on his cheeks. He'd made it to the finishing line using all the energy he had. A whole life's run. In his nose the tubes and cotton wool they'd used to stop the bleeding. Uncomfortable, invasive. He'd have suffered a kind of hell in those last hours. I kissed him on the forehead and told him I loved him for that. Some awful nobility in it. I said I knew he loved us too, that he loved me although it wasn't easy for him to say those words to anyone.. For some reason he just couldn't. Then I kissed him again and said thanks for everything.. He'd done his best. His forehead was cold and dry, skin pulled tight like a leather ball. I wished him well. It felt as if his spirit had gone from his body but I thought it could not have gone far. Was he there in the room listening to me? I hoped he was. I was talking to him as if he could hear my words, read my thoughts. I kissed him again. Three kisses, three goodbyes, three regrets...
At times you were mean and grumpy and you wanted so much attention.. too much .. i couldn't give you what you expected.. It didn't seem fair

Did I think this then or is it just now, 10 days later that I'm releasing the old thoughts? The funeral over - it went so well. Not one word was spoken that could have stung the air. Not a word.

Everyone loved him.. what a great man!

I loved his wife -who loved him-and I know that's how I reached him best.


And the other part of the week-two weeks in fact- has been the bushfires.

.. On the news, in the paper and here in my head.. On Saturday 7th February we were in the lounge sifting through a suitcase of Jack's photos, looking for ones that could be used in the funeral booklet. The air con in the corner was blowing over our heads like a sea breeze whilst outside it was 47 degrees, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the state. Less than a 30 minute drive away a bushfire was racing through the Bunyip forest and towards towns nearby. Labertouche, Drouin west, Neerim south. All towns of my childhood . These were the places where dad so often went, visiting farmers and drumming up support for the National Civic Council. Last Saturday those places were going up in smoke. Not only there but elsewhere in Gippsland the bush was burning.. near my brother Paul's home in Churchill -he was standing at his back door, watching the sky when I spoke to him early in the morning and sounded so edgy, a tremor in his voice. "I have friends in Boolarra"..he said "it's seriously worrying..
And on it went.. we kept the radio with us.. 774 had become a lifeline to people everywhere.. The fires were blazing all over the state..I carried the tranny from room to room with me.. Somehow I had to share some of their fear..
Saturday evening Feb 14th was the first time they stopped the bushfire info line and went back for a little while to something remotely like normal programmes.. In this case a soccer semi-final followed by an old BBC comedy show from the 50s or 60s..Just a minute.. Was this to take everyone's minds away from the terror of the fires..the constancy of fear?..

It's relentless.. the smoke smell overnight and in through the doors early this morning, the pierce of the sirens as fire engines from the depot by the railway station a couple of streets away go out again and again..
Where are they going?
will they be safe?
When will it end?

I should be doing something.. not just the money or the clothes..and not just writing.. something actual and practical.. a very real kindness for very real people..
what?