April 22nd - Earth Day

We didn’t realize that it was Earth Day, but we are so happy we chose April 22nd, for Joseph’s burial. We love that we can forever lock them together. 

It was exactly as he wanted; the weather was wonderful, we were just enough people, the site was perfect, the funeral company just right and the small get-together afterwards in the parkland across from home was a lovely ending.

The funeral company asked for six strong people to lift the casket.  A bit tricky when you are allowed 15 people (outside funerals) and two of those spots are taken up by funeral personnel and four spots taken up by teeny tiny children. Luckily of the othe seven we had Mischa, Pablo, John and Michael ... and then ... up popped Billie and Jasper to help.

Michael read his beautiful poem, Cassia struggled through her beautiful tribute to her Dad, Mischa read his letter of lessons his dad taught him ...to do ... and not to do, Jasper asked to speak and said a perfect goodbye to his Grandpa and Billie remembered how Grandpa would always drive with just one hand on the wheel and she wanted that mentioned. I read the last two verses of “Funeral Blues” by W.H.Auden, one Jospeh had asked me to read and that said it for me anyway.

We placed our memories on top of the cardboard coffin and left.

We setup in the parklands across from our building, at the back of the Winnebago and we raised our glasses to him and knew he would have enjoyed it all.  We had nibbles and drinks (alcohol no worries here in Aus) and lollies and the kiddies ran and kicked the ball and we sat and stayed for three hours... until the police came (they left us when we explained) but it was time to go anyway. For such a sad day, it was a good day.

... and still the tributes come in. This man, who had me next to him being so loud and dominating most conversations, had in the seven years we were back, been quietly going about volunteering and making friends and making more of an impact here than I could in my lifetime! He baited rats, he trudged through quicksand to monitor shorebirds, he planted trees, he picked up garbage, he walked for miles monitoring Mallee Fowl and he mapped Gluepot for birds because nobody had done it before. He did all that in the heat and the cold with the flies and the wind. 

He was a tad embarrassed that people thought him an expert in identifying birds - he knew how good the good ones really are, he knows most of them!  Sometimes his passion on a subject could overwhelm you and his beliefs so strong I would hold my breath at what he might say. But he never wavered.

... he is a better man than I am Charlie Brown!

April 19

The kiddies and I would like to THANK YOU for all of your wonderful notes about Joseph, for him and for us.  We are overwhelmed by your love and to learn of the influence he surely didn’t know he spread.

It has been a tough journey, but you should know that joseph never, ever complained... he had one little “why me”, and even though he could almost feel it tearing through his body and he couldn’t believe he had cancer, he didn’t complain. He was sad but he didn’t complain. He was to the end, what all of you have said of him.

I would like, with your permission, to use all of those amazing comments in a blog post.  If you would rather not have yours appear please let me know -and perchance I leave yours out then let me know that as well.  

They come from many different avenues and it will be a task to find them all - but while it was a blessing that he had the chance to read them - I think he also deserves to have them shared.  I hope you agree.

July 2019,  Crosby Lake, Ontario, Canada

Friday April 17th

After the car ride and the grandkiddie-Easter hello-waves, after the solar panels and after we found just the right amount of meds, Joseph slept peacefully his last days with us right there by his side until Friday night April 17 at exactly 9.00 p.m. his spirit flew away.  

Mischa, Simone, Cassia and I were there right next to him when he took his last breath ... we’ve been with him most of the past 5 days as he slept and held on with a heart beating as strong as ever but finally he said enough. We were sad of course but glad to be there in our house together to say goodbye.

His body will be buried in the next few days, with just immediate (Aust) family.

We want to thank all of you for the love you sent and the beautiful notes you wrote us over the past 133 days, on this crazy, sad journey. We will all gather sometime later; here or in Canada, to celebrate and remember our darling; best dad, best friend.

With love and thanks

Jill, Mischa, Cassia (Simone & Pablo) and kiddie poohs.

April 15

After some restless, sad days since “the car ride” we had to call on the nurse, who in consultation with the “on-call” doctor put him back onto the pump with us topping him up with “extras” (breakthrough pain meds) as needed.  It was patches of sleep and some not and still being restless and sad - so yesterday (14th) the nurse and I had a video call with PC doctor and coordinator, and that, along with the records of “extras” we kept, was enough for them to make significant changes to the meds; increased background dosage as well as to the “extras”.

So we topped him up and he fell into a much more relaxed sleep. 

His back/bottom have been so sore lately, so within hours of asking, Andrew from Domicile (rental equip) delivered a “cloud” mattress!  (Turns out Andrew had delivered to this apartment four years earlier!) ... With help from Mischa the (now) two nurses, without taking him out of bed, installed and inflated and had him floating on little pockets or air that, with the help of a pump, inflate and deflate as needed!! In addition to everything else Palliative Care have provided us (and honestly where would we be without them) I have the services of night-nurses!. So tonight came Jin at 10 and I disappeared to the end room to sleep perhaps ...

Now while he floats on his little clouds, we sit and wait and watch. Mischa read Bill Bryson’s I Love a Sunburnt Country to him that is guaranteed to bring a smile no matter if your eyes are open or shut... and all of us (M&S, C&P & me) are feeling relief (and a million other things) that he seems finally to be resting peacefully and we are here together as tight as tight can be.

Easter ... Mischa and the car - Cassia and the walker

Thanks to everybody who sent Easter wishes across the miles

... we send more of the same back to you ...

The Car:

Joseph wanted to do three things with Mischa; visit the grave, witness the *solar panels being installed on their house and go for a long drive ... in the Merc.  Mischa had hoped for a weekend in the van but “settled” for a drive - in the Merc - on Good Friday, whittling it down from the Flinders Ranges (10hrs), to Mt Remarkable (8 hrs) to finally Clare (4hrs) the famous wine district but with views out to those areas. We 

They visited Wirra Wonga, but the solar panels now happen on Tuesday so that left the wait for “the drive” to be almost intolerable (mostly for me). “What time is it?” - “9.30” “oh it’s time to go?”  - “no it’s 9.30 at night”, and again at 12.30 a.m. and then at 5.30 a.m. finally it was close enough and after dressing, pills and brekkie, it was 8.30 a.m. and they were gone ... in the Merc ... with Mischa in charge of the music!

*parents often live vicariously through their children, and it’s been Joseph’s dream for Mischa and Simone to have solar panels. Not a rush for Mischa but it became Joseph’s obsession of late -so Mischa did his homework, we cashed in three more gold bars and April 14 can’t come quickly enough.

The Walker:

Joseph had three wishes for Cassia; learn our finances, keep an eye on my spending and, of late, having her help look after his book-collection bequeaths; 16 (huge/heavy) Volumes of Birds of the World go to SA Birds, who have gratefully accepted the gift but don’t know where to put them, the ridiculously-heavy, two-volume boxed collection of The Far Side to the President of Birds SA who seems excited about them!

Since his fall trying to tend to the books himself, Cassia now wheels them along on his walker from one end of the house to the other, to sit on my bed, hold them up for him in his bed to see, await instructions then slap on a sticky note. ... and if you have showed even the teeniest, slightest bit of interest in a subject, that sticky note might have your name on it; Geology, birds, design, trees, flowers, art, King Tut, canoes ... be ready - it’s coming. Of course if you showed that interest and live in Australia, the better your chances!  

Oxfam will receive the others, but I worry about those oh so “Canadian books” that nobody here will know/want/care about ... Pierre Burton, Peter Mansbridge (signed!!), Farley Mowat etc. Right now it isn’t possible to send packages by sea (via Post Office anyway) but perhaps I should keep them and make sure they make it back to the land they love?

Poor cassia, she accomplished wish #1, she knows the improbability of wish #2, and works on wish #3 in between looking after her two kiddie poohs with Jospeh barking instructions from his command post  ... and while it’s not quite the same as driving Dad in the Merc - she wouldn’t have it any other way.

April 6th ... one month!

It was March 6th we found out the cancer had travelled to the brain and the prognosis wasn’t good - but here we are a whole month later and “he’s still here”!!

There is still pain when he moves, but sitting and lying are now fairly pleasant experiences.  It takes every ounce of energy he can muster to pull himself up and walk to the lazy boy chair or down the elevator for a drive in the car but he pushes himself to keep going.

He’s spent the last while getting things in order and the last item to take care of was his burial and wake. The wake was an easier one to chat about; choosing/remembering his favourite songs/music.  (Of course there’s L.C.and G.L. and the others come, mostly in the middle of the night, and there are a lot of them!  But Eve of Destruction is banned, even though it’s the first song I heard him “sing”!) 

Then a venue: On all those drives to drs, hospital, treatments, we pass by most of the private-school rowing-club boathouses and one reminded us so much of the Ottawa Rowing Club. So later, in a boathouse on opposite sides of the world, there will be a party and he’s sad he won’t be there, but I tell him that he knows exactly how it will look and sound -  and that’s the teeny, tiny silver lining in all of this, that we have those special moments to make plans - together.

Planning ones burial takes more courage than I know I have, but joseph has known for a long time that he wants a “natural burial”. He doesn’t want to use any extra energy or leave anything behind when he’s finished. So we just had to find the place where it could happen, and we did. It’s called Wirra Wonga (bush grave) and it’s a lovely natural bushland setting in a local cemetery, and we drove the Merc out to have a look and he is very happy. So happy, that we drove the Merc out again the next day with Cassia on board and now he’s itching to drive the Merc out again and show Mischa.

That all might sound like the hardest thing in the world to be talking about, but for me it’s been the most wonderful gift he can give me and if he thought he had me at “Mercedes”, well there isn’t enough gold in the world for this one.

April 3rd

Goodness 5 days since posting ... i hope for you it was a case of “no news is good news”?? 

It’s been a mix of crazy nights and good days...

As with most things, everything is magnified at night. Joseph finds it a sad time and difficult to fall asleep so one of the nurses suggested a new drug to help with anxiety and help sleep.  It seems to be helping.

Days have been more rides in the Merc; one with Mischa that included a pickup of takeout fish&chips, one while I shopped (he stays in car) and yesterday to my sister’s while I “video-chatted” with my mother (locked in her nursing home) for her 89 birthday.

As it should be visits are limited (well they should be zero but ...) Cassia comes everyday - they have isolated except for us so that’s the way it will be - and Mischa when he can - and of course the nurse who comes every 4 or so days.

In between the night and day his time is mostly in bed with either his computer perched on his lap (during awake and dozing) and his gold wafer that he caresses at least 1,000 times over the 24hrs (day or night).

Here he shows both the perched computer and caressing of gold
I think there was polishing just before photo
We assess we have lots at least an ounce due to excessive polishing!!

 And here is the gold he just can’t get enough of ...

And ... as joseph tells me every morning when he wakes (5.30, 6.30, 7.30?) ... that he is still here!  

He’s still here ordering us all around; get the  book for Tom, get those CDs for C&D, find the will, find that piece of paper, find this, find that ... his mind is racing and my flipping thongs are wearing out ...

 and so is he 😔 

His view from bed
Artwork from kiddies save for blue lady which is an artist friend from the Dock (