Last night I went to a talk at the WEA by Kellie Finlayson. Kellie is the wife of Port Adelaide football player Jeremy Finlayson, and she's developed a bit of a public profile as she battles terminal bowel cancer. I found the talk to be incredibly inspirational. Not so much because of what she was saying, but because of the fact that she was there giving the talk in the first place.
She wants to spread a message of positivity and hope, which I think is incredibly admirable given the fact she was supposed to be dead 18 months ago, and the doctors don't know what is keeping her alive now. Below you can see Kellie at the front of the room with the first slide of her PowerPoint presentation. It probably looks like there weren’t many people there with just one man sitting in front of me, but the small room filled up, and I counted 26 people in total. It was nice and intimate and sold out, which was good for her.
She had the whole world at her feet and I reckon she would have faced the world passionately with so much effervescence which she displayed last night. It was sad because she was having some symptoms back in 2020 and she had a colonoscopy booked but it was cancelled because of COVID. If she had of had the colonoscopy it is very likely that her cancer wouldn't be terminal and they could have easily taken care of it if it was caught early.
She said knowing this is bitter sweet because if they had of caught it in 2020 then she would have became infertile and wouldn't have had her daughter. I think I've mentioned before that sometimes I can't relate to parents who either lose a child or have strong emotions related to their child and I guess this is one of those moments. I think I would be happy that I had had the child and that would make up for the fact that I was terminal but I don't know.
Kellie talked about her relationship with her footballer husband. She said one night she was in bed and she had an incredibly painful migraine and she told Jeremy about it. She said she went to sleep but he set his alarm every hour to wake up to make sure she was still alive as he thought the migraine might be related to her cancer.
I got a bit teary when she said that. I thought that was beautiful and I can only imagine what it feels like to have somebody love you that much.
From the way she was talking, it sounds like having cancer is extremely expensive. She mentioned something as a joke, but when you think about it, it’s actually quite serious. Her husband suffered a lacerated spleen on Sunday against the Gold Coast, and he won’t be playing again this season.
She also mentioned that he’s out of contract. I remember he got into trouble a little while ago for making a homophobic slur on the field, which he was incredibly apologetic about, but I hope that doesn’t add up to him losing his spot at the club next year. Surely Port Adelaide wouldn’t do that to someone whose wife is dying of cancer. I really hope not.
- To see the glow worms in the Waitomo glow worm caves on the North Island of New Zealand
- Go to Lapland in Finland for my mother's 80th birthday in 2026
- Make my own wooden Christmas tree ornaments
- See a total solar eclipse
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All I’ve received are ten return-to-senders, each with a sticker on the front that says “No Service.” I don’t know if that means there’s no mail service in those countries, or if Australia Post doesn’t deliver there, but the countries I’ve received mail back from are:
- Belarus
- Syria
- Bolivia
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Guinea-Bissau
- Venezuala
- Yemen
- Russia
- Somalia
I can’t wait to get my first letter back. I have no predictions about where it will be from, I don’t even expect Australia to be first in writing back to me. I haven’t been going to the post office box every day because I haven’t expected anything to come in just yet, but I think a month is a good amount of time. So I will be going there every day to check.
I've been to visit Nanny twice in the last couple of days, and I am going to keep the momentum going. It's been a bit difficult to go because of my sleep issues, but I am now of the mindset to get the fuck up — no matter what. The other day, I went to see Nanny, and I saw a rainbow in the car park of her nursing home.
I managed to capture a photo of it; you can see it below. The first white car — the Toyota Corolla — is my trusty little car.
Nanny and I have been having some good conversations. I find if she starts to get upset, I acknowledge what she's saying and feeling but then I quickly move on to something completely different.
Because I've taken a bit of an interest in the US presidential election we've talked about that a fair bit and there has been a lot to talk about seeing as there was an assassination attempt on Trump's life.
Trump has got the election in the bag. He can't lose. I don't like him much but I have to say I think he's an incredibly clever and lucky person. Clever because after the assassination attempt he had blood running down his face and must have been scared and in shock but he managed to get up and put his fist up and yell out "fight". I thought that was incredibly clever for a politician. And I think he's lucky because the bullet didn't kill him.
It was such a near miss if that was just an inch over it would have done some serious damage. I don't like him much as a politician because I think he's irresponsible but I don't mind him as a person simply because I think he can be pretty funny. I'm glad he's okay.
While I've been doing a bit of work, I've had the Republican National Convention on in the background, but I've missed all the good bits. I haven't been paying that much attention, to be honest — I'm too busy working on my letters. I feel an urgency to get my next round of letters out so I can start getting responses soon.
It's been nearly a month and I haven't received anything back from the heads of state, so this project is going to take months and months — which is okay.
There was the most horrible crime in the Philippines, where two Australians — David James Fisk, 57, and his wife, Lucita Barquin Cortez, 55 — were found dead inside their Lake Hotel room in Tagaytay, south of Manila, on Wednesday last week. Ms Cortez’s daughter-in-law, who I think was a local woman, Mary Jane Cortez, 30, was also found dead. The perpetrator apparently killed David with a knife and suffocated the two women. He even bound them and taped their mouths. It is simply horrific.
I read an interview with David’s daughters, who were distraught — and rightly so. The man who allegedly did this was tracked down, and he is a disgruntled former employee of the hotel. He used to work as a pool cleaner and was let go by management, and he wanted to get back at them by doing this. That is so scary.
That doesn’t particularly scare me about staying in hotels, because you would have to be so unlucky to have such a cruel and senseless crime inflicted upon you. But it scared me about human nature. People can be bad. Really bad. I know this — of course I know this — but I was watching a lecture online the other day, and the writer was talking about fairytales and the lessons they teach us.
He talked about Little Red Riding Hood and how the wolf dresses up as the girl’s grandmother. He said that’s meant to teach young children that there are people in the world who want to harm you, who don’t always want to do right by you. It sounds a little dark, but it’s so true.
