Peace Be With You

Nanny's funeral was held at the Lithuanian church on Saturday, the 19th of October. It was so surreal going to the church without Nanny, as I have been there with her so many times before. There was a big turnout of her extended family and the Lithuanian community, which I know she would have been very happy with. My brother came back from London for the funeral, so I went with him and my mother.

As the service began, the church choir sang a song in Lithuanian, and that set me off. My brother Bryan and I had written short speeches and were to speak, and I was very worried that I wouldn't be able to hold it together. Nanny's daughter Pam got up and spoke first; she started crying initially and couldn't compose herself. My friend Rebecca, who is her daughter, got up and stood up front with her, and she eventually got the words out.

Then my brother and I were up. I asked Bryan to come and stand next to me as I spoke first. When I started speaking, I had to push the words out through the lump in my throat. I wavered a little and I almost lost it, but then I somehow managed to get a rhythm going and said the body of the speech without crying. At the end, I said, "Nanny was my best friend, and her passing had left a huge hole in my life. I love her and I miss her." I really stumbled through that. I then went and sat down, and my brother spoke.

I love my brother, and I really feel bad for him because this was the third funeral he has spoken at this year—all for VIPs in his life. But the way he spoke was like he was doing stand-up. Don't get me wrong; he wasn't cracking jokes, it’s just that he was quite casual, wasn’t using notes, and looked at the congregation so much that it was almost a little bit awkward. I didn’t tell him that, but it was just an observation I made.

After we all spoke, members of the Lithuanian church community spoke about the huge contribution she had made and how respected she was amongst them all. This is something that would have meant the world to her, as it was such a huge part of her life and she gave so much of her time and herself to it. There was then a full Catholic mass. I surprised myself by how much of the service I knew and knew what to say at times. I think that’s because I went to a Catholic school for a year, and I’ve spent time at different masses throughout my life.

Sometimes, when they say "peace be with you," people turn around and shake hands, and there’s a lot of love around the place. In saying that, I’ve noticed that more in Anglican services. At this particular service, people turned around and nodded their heads, saying "peace be with you." I have decided that at the next Catholic mass I go to, it would be appropriate for me to hold up the two-finger peace sign during this time to my fellow congregation members.

When it comes to communion, as I have not been baptised or confirmed, I tend to go up for a blessing. To get the blessing, you generally have to cross your arms across your chest to indicate to the priest that you would just like a blessing. I was trying to explain this to my brother when the priest said it himself. It was all fairly self-explanatory, and both my brother Bryan and I were blessed by Yahweh. While I am not a fan of Yahweh, I sometimes behave myself at church to get in his good graces.

My brother and I, along with Nanny's four biological grandchildren, were pallbearers, and we somewhat awkwardly escorted her coffin out of the church. Then we had to carry her to the hearse. While we were carrying her to the hearse, I had an out-of-body experience. I could not believe what was happening. I was with Nanny's four grandchildren and my brother, all of whom I have known since the day I was born, and we were saying goodbye to someone who was everything to most of us. I couldn’t believe I was carrying her and that she wasn’t with us at the Lithuanian church.

I was so glad when all of the formalities were over. I’m afraid I’m just not equipped for this sort of thing. I didn’t want to feel or experience what was happening. I didn’t want it to be real.

Afterward, we all went inside to the church hall. My mother, brother, and I sat at a table on our own, and everyone else tended to sit in family and church community groups. As the food was laid out on one of the tables, people flocked to it like seagulls.

We were sitting at this table, and Rebecca, Pam, and lots of people came and spoke to us. I said to my brother that I wanted this day to be over. He got a bit annoyed and said he had come all the way from London and wanted to go and talk to people. I told him there was no hurry at all; we would wait for him as long as it took. I was more making the comment in passing.

Directly opposite me, a few tables over, was Roger. Roger is Nanny's sister's daughter's husband—so, Nanny's niece's husband. Nanny's niece died, I think, just over a year ago now. When I first met Nanny's niece Melinda and her husband Roger, it was over 20 years ago now. They were both ten or so years older than me. He was this big, heavyish set, tall South African with a sexy accent, and I said to Rebecca at the time that I wanted to meet a man like that. I was incredibly attracted to him, although, of course, I didn't want anything from him because he was with his wife Melinda at the time.

Melinda was such a cool chick; she was friendly and bubbly, and I was so sad to hear that she had died of cancer. I had seen her since our first meeting, but I hadn't seen him until last year at Nanny's 90th birthday. Melinda had just died, and I spent a lot of time at the party just looking at him, trying to build up the nerve to go and give my condolences, but I was somehow attracted to him again.

Seeing him at Nanny's funeral with his daughter triggered the attraction again, and I couldn't bring myself to go and say hi, let alone give my condolences about Melinda. I made eye contact with him once or twice, but once Bryan had finished talking to everyone, we decided to go home.

Below, you can see two photos I took at the church. The first one was in the hall, of a woman in traditional Lithuanian dress at a spinning machine, and the second is of a sculpture carving type thing on the outside wall of the church.

I never really use Facebook. I use it for an organisation I run their page for, but my own private page I haven't really engaged with in years. When we got home from the funeral, I decided to send a friend request to Roger, and I also wrote an accompanying note. I said how sorry I was about Melinda and that she was a beautiful soul. I told him how I was too shy to go up to him and say hi but that I remembered when we met over 20 years ago.

He accepted my friend request and wrote back to me, and we got into a conversation. We ended up talking for over eight hours. We talked about the loss of his wife, his work—which is turbine work with oil and gas, as well as fly-in, fly-out shutdowns for half of the year. We talked about him a lot, but not really about me. I asked him a lot of questions about his life, but he didn't really ask about me much.

He believes the world is flat and the moon landing was faked. He also believes there are cameras everywhere recording everything we all do. My friend Mariah, who works at the Planetarium, would have annihilated this guy with the flat earth and moon landing claims, and I myself can't understand how people can honestly think that in this day and age, but I was lapping it up. I also made a joke that anyone watching my life 24/7 would be incredibly bored, but he seems to think it is real.

Something else he said was that the media is set up to control us with the stories they report and all of that kind of thing. Politicians, puppets—it was this full-on conspiracy theory. I don't judge anyone's belief; I like ancient astronaut theory myself, but what he was saying sounded like paranoid delusions. Which, again, I do not judge, but it's hard to have a rational conversation with someone who's talking like that.

But you want to know a secret? I didn't care. In this instance, the man's overt masculinity and the 20 year echo of his deep sexy South African accent overrode the ridiculousness of what he was saying. 

We talked a few more times, and to be honest, I got a bit of a thrill every time we spoke until one day we started talking about how racist Nanny was. There is no doubt about it—she was extremely racist. She didn’t like Black people, Asians, Jews—anyone that was different, really. I was deeply against her prejudices, and I don’t view them as a difference of opinion; I view racism as an injustice, and there is no place for it in this world. In her instance, it was a generational thing, though. And I know I have just made an excuse for her, but at her core, she was not a bad person, and it’s just one of those things I overlooked.

When Roger and I were talking about that, he said that people often think he is racist. But he says he’s not. He says he is “sure there are some good ones (Black people),” and he will talk to them and work with them; he just won’t let them in his house. I knew after he said that, that I couldn’t continue talking to him, but I didn’t say goodbye straight away. As I did with Nanny, I overlooked it for a minute, but then after a few days, I made the decision that there is no room for someone like that in my life.

One of my best friends, Maiki, is a Black man, and my good friend Mariah has a beautiful daughter who is half Nigerian. How could I look them in the eye while talking to a racist pig like Roger? Once I made the decision I didn’t want to talk to him anymore, I didn’t message him again, and strangely, he must have got the vibe because he hasn’t messaged me either. 

Completely Exposing Himself

It’s 2:52am on Saturday, October 12. I'm sitting here at the desk in my room at the Intercontinental, and I have the curtains open. Below, you can see a photo of the view from one of the windows. If you look closely, you will notice a couple of people walking across the bridge, which surprised me at this time.

I still have this sickly feeling in my stomach after Nanny's death. My brother is flying in from London on Thursday for her funeral, and we have been asked to speak. We have also been asked to be pallbearers, along with Nanny's biological grandchildren. I figure my emotions will go one of two ways on the day: I'll either be super emotional or not emotional at all. I expect it will be the former.

Nanny would not like me staying here at the Intercontinental because I'm too scared to stay at the house by myself. She would have been so angry and told me not to: (a) waste the money on the hotel and (b) talk about such nonsense. Nanny, of course, would have let me stay at her house, which I would have done, but that's not a possibility now.

I’ll tell you one thing she would have hated: I ordered a bowl of ice cream with chocolate topping earlier, and it cost me $26. That isn't as expensive as other food I've purchased here through room service, but I thought $26 was particularly ridiculous. Below, you can see the ice cream.

I’ve been thinking about my mother’s experience at an all-girls school and comparing it with my own. She went to Seymour College—back then, I believe it was called PGC. She was a boarder, and she absolutely loved it. She still has her core group of friends from those days, and they all meet a couple of times a year.

Out of the eight schools I attended, three were private all-girls schools. Two of them were fine, but one of them was awful. If I ever had a daughter, I would have never sent her to St Peter’s Girls’ School. The culture there is incredibly bitchy, and while I was never formally bullied, I was very deliberately excluded and made to feel unwelcome by the other students.

The girls there were incredibly mean, and I’ve never felt so strongly that I didn’t belong somewhere in my life. I started at Saints in Year 8, and I was sent there against my will because I loved Scotch and had to leave all of my friends—and my whole life there—when we moved house. I wasn’t used to an all-girls environment, but everything else felt familiar, like the uniforms, especially the hats we had to wear in public at all times. Saints is an Anglican school, and every morning before classes we had chapel, where the entire school attended a service before going about the day.

At Scotch, I had been in the cool group of girls. We weren’t smoking cigarettes or pot at that age, but we were still considered popular. In junior school, they called us the BP’s—the Bitch Patrol—but by Year 7 our image softened. When I started at St Peter’s Girls’, I didn’t have any friends. I wasn’t pretty or athletic; I think I was a bit of a weirdo. At lunchtime, I would sit alone in the library, not reading novels but flicking through textbooks. The popular girls excluded me from everything—classwork, lunchtime groups, and any kind of social interaction. Sometimes, they even laughed at me.

I remember one girl whose name was Holly. She made a comment to me during art class that has stuck with me all this time. We were all sitting around a table making something, and Holly said I reminded her of an actress in a movie called Heavenly Creatures. Someone else commented that the particular actress was really ugly—which, by the way, she is not, but I’m just repeating what was said during art class. Holly just looked at me and said, "Yes, I know." I said to her, "That's not very nice," and she just responded, "I'm just telling the truth." All the girls around the table laughed. Holly had this incredibly nasty look on her face, and I'll never forget it.

When I got home from school that night, I went to my room and cried a lot.

I think my unhappiness at Saints had a lot to do with why my parents moved me to Loreto at the end of Year 9. It was an elitist school that seemed to celebrate nastiness and had a culture of exclusion and singling out anyone who was different. I'm friends with some of the girls I went to school with on Facebook, and I see they've sent their daughters there, and I can't help but feel bad for them. I hope they have a successful educational journey, but the school reminds me of so many reasons why women can be so awful to other women. More often than not, they were awful to me.

I’m not a victim of those days, but I do think my experience at St Peter’s Girls’ School helped shape who I am today. It taught me how I want to treat people, and it set a standard for how I like to be treated in return—though I’m not always as strict about enforcing that for myself as I should be.

Shifting from Saints Girls to Loreto felt like running from a big, nasty monster straight into the arms of someone loving, gentle, and safe. My year at Loreto was one of my favourites, and the girls there more than made up for the genuinely horrible ones at Saints.

Tonight I’ve also been thinking about something else. When I was a young kid, my friend Melanie and I went for a sleepover at another friend’s house — Emma’s.

The three of us had our sleeping bags laid out in a circle and her Father came in to read us a story. While he was doing this, his dick was hanging out of his boxer shorts.

I can't remember him touching it, but he was looking at it and it was extremely confusing. I just remember looking at him. Really looking at his face and at his dick too. I was scared and I went to see Emma's mother in her bedroom and asked her if I could go home. She said I couldn't, telling me my parents were out that night and there was no way to reach them. 

The next morning when my parents were picking me up, I can recall his dick dangling out of the same boxer shorts as he packed up my sleeping bag. But there was something not right about how the night before, he sat there in such close quarters reading a book to the three of us—completely exposing himself.

I never spoke to my parents about it and only told Nanny really just to tell her I’d seen a dick.  She told my Mum who then said I wouldn’t be going over to Emma's house anymore and I thought that was it.

However, the other girl who was at the house that night, Melanie, told her parents, and they called the police. We were both sent to specialised counsellors, and he ended up going to court. Apparently, he was a serial exposer, but I don’t think he ever served any jail time.

Majestic Creatures

It’s 2:00am on Friday, the 11th of October, and I’m lying here in my room at the Intercontinental. I’m staying here for two nights while Mum is away in the Riverland because I didn’t want to stay in the house alone. The Socceroos just had a big match against China, which they won 3-1. And a man in the lift told me that the Socceroos are staying here at the Intercontinental, which I thought was a bit exciting. It makes me wish I were young and sexy so I could go down and flirt with them at the bar. Below, you can see a photo of my bed, and out of my window, you can see people walking across the bridge to Adelaide Oval for the match.

I am absolutely outraged at Adelaide Zoo. Yesterday, they euthanised their two lions. The first was Mujambi, a 19-year-old male who had a medical episode over the weekend. I understand that if he was seriously unwell, euthanising him could have been the kindest thing to do. But then they euthanised his partner of 16 years, 23-year-old Amani, claiming that "the negative welfare and aspects of her life without Mujambi were determined to outweigh any positives of remaining alone." Essentially, they are saying she couldn’t live without him.

Adelaide Zoo director Dr. Phil Ainsley stated, "In the case of lions, they are a social species, and the likelihood of safely moving or integrating Amani into another pride or environment was considered too risky and stress-provoking."

Here’s what The Advertiser reported online:

Zoos SA Chief Executive Elaine Bensted explained that the decision to euthanise was unanimous among Adelaide Zoo’s animal care team after considering the pair’s health and age.

“They were a bonded pair, they were both aged, they were both under medical treatment for quite some time, and we didn’t want what might have been Amani’s last months to be spent pining for the male she had been partnered with for so long,” Bensted said.

“It was a decision made with the welfare of the animals in mind, and now we wrap our arms around our staff and volunteers.”

I recognise that an extensive decision-making process would have been involved, particularly when euthanising Amani, who was elderly but relatively healthy. However, that was wrong. She may have been stressed and grieving, but she still had life left to live. Taking her life away because she couldn’t live without her mate is nothing short of criminal. Who are they to say she couldn’t have found some sort of meaningful life without him? It may not have been ideal, but it would have been life. They are playing God, and I believe someone should be held accountable for this.

The zoo is managed by the Royal Zoological Society of South Australia (Zoos SA), and it receives funding from the South Australian government and private sources.  Taxpayer dollars help fund the zoo’s operations, and I feel their incompetence is unacceptable. The ultimate goal of any living creature is to live. Do you think park rangers in the wild kill widowed lions because they believe the animal can’t live without their deceased mate? She may have missed him, but taking her life for that is another matter entirely. The should have at least given her a chance.

I have never been a fan of zoos; there is something grotesque about locking up these beautiful animals so we humans can gawk at them. Even those born in captivity can be released into sanctuaries or rehabilitation programs that prepare them to live in the wild. But I still visit zoos in solidarity with the animals. I believe we should create holographic zoos where people, particularly children, can engage with lifelike holograms. Zoos claim to be about conservation—well, holographic zoos would present a great opportunity to promote conservation through education and interaction.

This has really upset me. These beautiful, majestic creatures have been messed with by the staff at the Adelaide Zoo.

Whenever I read about something controversial like this, I try to assume there must have been an extremely compelling reason behind the decision. But in this case, I believe the Adelaide Zoo made the wrong choice—and now, they will have to live with that decision and what it means for the zoo’s legacy.

Sleep Shepherd

I remember when I was a young child, my parents used to have lots of dinner parties. My brother and I were allowed to stay up for a little while, talking to and likely entertaining everyone, and then we were put to bed. I used to love the feeling of going to bed while there were so many adults still up. It made me feel safe, as if something bad were to happen, someone would notice. The desire for that feeling has transferred over to my adult life. I love staying at hotels with 24-hour reception. I love someone being awake while I am asleep.

It must have been nearly twenty years ago now. My brother and I were at the 21st birthday of one of Nanny’s grandsons. There was a whole group of us standing in a circle, and I started to tell everyone about this new idea I had called “Sleep Shepherd.” I think this was when the internet was still in its infancy, so my idea was ambitious. I basically thought people could join a website where, if someone in one country was sleeping at night, they could put a camera on themselves, and another person on the other side of the world could have their camera on and watch them during their daytime.

The idea was that if something bad was about to happen, the person watching could notify the sleeper. People started saying things like, “What the fuck is that?” and “That is so creepy,” and made lots of suggestions about the type of people a site like that would attract. But I would love someone to watch me sleep.

When the Twilight books and movies came out, the one thing I liked most about Edward Cullen, the main vampire, was that he watched his love interest, Bella Swan, sleep. Other Twilight fans expressed their disgust at the concept, but I thought it was sweet.

The reason I'm saying all of this is because I have just finished watching an eight-part docuseries about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and now I want someone to watch me sleep. I remember when I was first in Tanzania in 2007, and there were some British volunteers staying where I was. They used to talk about the case a lot. I think when I met them, it was around the time the Portuguese police had made Kate and Gerry McCann suspects. But aside from that, I didn’t know a huge amount about the disappearance.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m hugely sleep-deprived, or because I’ve had my own experiences with people overstepping boundaries when I was a child, but I feel sick to the bone. There are so many issues this docuseries raised. One is that, while it is absolutely horrifying what has happened — or may have happened — to Madeleine, she is one girl. She is one child who went missing, and her story became the most famous abduction case in the world.

Why did this particular story get so much media attention? What about all the other children who have been abducted, abused, or murdered? I think some of the media coverage she received was a good thing — don’t get me wrong — but the irony is that it didn’t help.

I also think the Portuguese police force is scary—the way they conducted investigations and were quick to point fingers at innocent people. But I don’t want to sit here and rehash the whole eight episodes. What I want to say is that this docuseries emphasised to me that there really are some bad people in this world. I knew this. I’ve met some of them and I’ve engaged with them, but this was a real reminder that you can never really know who someone is.

But it wasn’t actually the Netflix series, which was made in 2019, that made me feel physically sick. I remembered recently that someone had been made a suspect, so I went to YouTube and searched "Madeleine McCann." The man came up, and he is pure evil. He’s currently in a German jail for relevant crimes, and I watched a documentary on him and his offending history. There are people like him, and there are people like him all over the world. There are some very bad people in this world, and I’ve suddenly realised why I can’t sleep at night. 

Mum’s going away for two days on Thursday, and I just said to her that I couldn’t stay here alone. I know how ridiculous it sounds. I just turned 43, and I can’t sleep alone in the house. But as I’ve said before, I’ve lived alone and stayed alone for most of my twenties. But now, in this bigger house, as Nanny would say, every little noise disturbs me. I booked a room at the Intercontinental for the nights Mum will be away, and I’ll come home to feed the cats.

After watching this documentary on YouTube, I said to Mum, "There are some very bad people in this world," and she said, "Yes, but there are also some good people." I agree with that, but it makes me think. I’m really big on everyone being equal, but I look at this suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, and he is a monster. Is he equal to me? I don’t think he is. 

In some ways, I wish I hadn’t watched this docuseries. I binged it over two nights, so it was pretty intense. There are some heinous, vile creatures in this world. I don’t know what I am going to do about not being able to stay in the house alone. I’m going to Cambodia in December, and Mum is going to London. She is staying away one month longer than me, and I’ve decided I am going to stay in a hotel for that month that I'm home and she's not here. I don’t have a lot of money, but the way I am feeling at the moment has made me realise that I need to earn a decent income to fund hotel stays.

Rest In Peace

It's now 1:37am on Monday, October 7, and it's a public holiday today. It's taken me a few days to even think about writing about what's happened, and it's only now that I feel I can write about it without crying.

On Thursday morning, I got an early call from Rebecca saying that Nanny had had a stroke. Her mum, who is Nanny's daughter, Pam, said we should get to the home as soon as possible. The nurses had told her that Nanny was in her final stages. I hadn’t slept, and I knew I couldn’t drive, so I asked Mum if she would take me to see Nanny and pick Rebecca up from the Adelaide Clinic. It wasn’t really on the way, but she had no other way of getting there, so Mum agreed. Mum said she would wait for us in the car because she didn’t want to come in—it reminded her too much of what happened with Dad.

When we went into Nanny's room, there wasn't anyone else there. She was lying there asleep, snoring very loudly. It would have been safe to assume she was in a peaceful rest, but I could hear the death rattle that I had heard about. Rebecca called Pam and told her that Nanny was asleep, and asked what she thought we should do—whether we should wake her up or go. Looking back now, I know that even if we had tried to wake her up, we wouldn’t have been able to. But we decided to leave her be, so we left.

On the way back to the car, I said to Rebecca that I noticed Nanny had the death rattle, and she said she heard it too. Mum and I dropped Rebecca back at the Adelaide Clinic and then we went home. It could have been an hour or so later, and I still hadn’t slept. I couldn’t sleep, just thinking about Nanny lying there. Then Rebecca called again. She said Pam had called and said we needed to get back to the nursing home right away.

Mum very kindly agreed to pick Rebecca up again, and we went back to the home while Mum waited in the car. Nanny's condition hadn’t changed much, but this time she had other family there, and everyone’s eyes were tear stained. Nanny's daughter-in-law asked if I would like to sit next to Nanny for a while, and I did. I just lost it. I held her hand and cried and cried, and I could feel everyone looking at me, but I didn’t care. It felt so surreal; I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I couldn’t believe I had just lost my father and now Nanny.

Rebecca was on the other side of Nanny, and she was very upset too. Pam told Rebecca and me that we should go and come back later that night. When I said goodbye to Nanny, she sort of waved her hand, and everyone said, "Look!" It was a beautiful moment. Who knows if she heard me, but I like to think she did.

Mum and I dropped Rebecca back at the Adelaide Clinic, and I told her to call me when she was ready to go back and we would come and pick her up again. She called me a little later and told me that her doctors had just put her back on the drug Clozapine, and they were worried about the sedating effects. They didn’t want her to go out that night, but I had to go, so I got ready and went alone.

I hadn’t slept since the day before, and it was getting on into the evening by then, but I didn’t feel tired at all. I drove to the nursing home and went to Nanny's room. I think it was around 7:00pm at this stage, and there was no one in her room. I went and sat next to Nanny, put my arm on her shoulder, and cried. I said, "I love you, Nanny," and I know this might sound unbelievable, but she forcibly opened her eyes. It actually scared me a little bit, to be honest, but it was a powerful moment in my life.

I thought I would stay there all night, so I sat down in her recliner. She was still snoring loudly, and I could hear the death rattle. I messaged my brother Eric and told him I was alone with Nanny. He knew that she was in the process of dying, and he asked if he could do a video call with her. I said yes, and he called. I held the phone up to Nanny's face, and he spoke to her. He got very upset and was crying. I pulled the phone back to me and said I didn’t want the video call to go on for too long because I didn’t want her daughter or a carer or a nurse to walk in and see me video calling. It just felt a bit wrong.

My brother was a bit annoyed by that, and I myself am annoyed at myself for saying it. Who would have cared? But it just felt wrong. I put the phone back up to Nanny, and he said his final goodbyes. Then I sat back down in the recliner. After about an hour had passed, Nanny's daughter arrived. She went and sat next to Nanny, and we talked for over an hour. She was, of course, very upset, but Nanny had been so unbelievably miserable, unable to accept her situation, that in some way, knowing she would have peace was a blessing.

I wanted to stay there all night with Nanny, but her daughter said she had to leave. I didn’t want to say, "Well, I'm going to stay," because Nanny was her mother, and it didn’t feel like my place. It was after 10:30pm when we left, and we both went home. I actually got a bit of sleep on Thursday night because it had been a long time since I had slept.

But I was woken around 6:00am when Rebecca rang me to tell me that Nanny had died. You know, sometimes I think I am a sociopath. Not a malicious one, just someone who is devoid of all emotion whatsoever. But I felt this harder than I have felt anything in a very long time. Rebecca and I didn’t speak long, and not long after, Pam rang me to tell me Nanny had died. She said a carer had been with her when she passed. I doubt that very much—carers don’t just sit with people as they are dying—but I didn’t say that. Her daughter cried, and I cried, and it was heartbreaking in so many ways.

She then asked if I would like to go to the nursing home to say goodbye to Nanny. I got Mum to drive me there purely because of sleep deprivation, although it wasn’t so bad by Friday morning. When I got there, Rebecca was there along with Pam and her husband Phil. I still couldn’t believe it, but there comes a time in your life when you have to say, "Grow the fuck up, she is dead." And I sort of did that, a little bit.

Pam's son, Reg, and his wife were booked to be induced with their second child that morning. While we were with Nanny, Reg sent photos to everyone of the new baby boy. Phil lost it and started bawling, talking about the circle of life. It was very sad, and it was a bit too much for me to handle, really. I cried, but I cried harder the day before when all the family was there.

It’s strange—this is my second dead body in six months, and both of them were two of the closest people to me. Sometimes I think life is like a movie, and you only get a certain number of main characters. Now two of mine are gone.

Rebecca wanted to leave, and she asked me if my mother could drop her back at the Adelaide Clinic, which we did. When we got home, I went into my room and slept all day. I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally.

When I woke up, I remembered Nanny's favourite movie, The Student Prince. In the six months before she first became unwell, we had watched it twice. She told me there was a song from the movie she wanted played at her funeral called "I'll Walk With God." But there is another song from the movie, "Drink, Drink, Drink," which Nanny and I both agreed was an awesome song.

After Mum went to bed on Friday night, I started listening to the song on repeat, and I just cried and cried and cried. It’s hard for me to explain to anybody what Nanny was to me. It wasn’t like she was my grandmother—it was like she was my best friend, but also like family. In many ways, before she became sick, my entire world revolved around her. It’s such a huge loss for me and for all of her family. I just don’t know what I am going to do without her.

I don’t believe in having regrets in life. Even the mistakes you’ve made keep you on a certain path. But I have to say I regret two things about the night I was at the nursing home, alone with Nanny. I regret making my brother feel pressure to shorten his goodbyes. It felt weird, like someone might have said, "What are you doing?" But I could have easily told them what we were doing, and I deeply regret having cared what people would have thought.

My other regret is in the same vein. I should have stayed with her and been with her when she passed. I keep reliving the moment I said to her daughter that I would go too. I should have just said I would stay. But the opinions of other people stood in my way of doing what my heart was telling me to do. Nanny wouldn’t have cared what people thought, she would have just done it. And as long as I live, I will never again make decisions based on fear of what someone else will think.

Maybe in time, the regret will pass. The only way it will is if something really good happens to me, and I can see that those mistakes put me on the right road.

Rest in peace, Nanny. I love you so much.

I See The Light

It is 5:34am on Thursday morning, the 3rd of October, and last night, I went to a public lecture at the Braggs Lecture Theatre at Adelaide Uni. The speaker was Kelly Clitheroe, the Section Director for the Geelong branch of the Astronomical Society of Victoria. Kelly gave a talk called “Dark Skies: A Practical Approach,” and it was all about light pollution. I liked her—she was passionate about the issue and knew a lot about it. But it raised a number of philosophical questions about light.

I love astronomy and am interested in everything to do with the universe, but I don't own a telescope or even binoculars yet. That is something I want to change, and when I have enough money to buy either, I certainly will. I still observe the stars without any tools, and sometimes, when I get a chance, I look through someone else's telescope. So I guess you wouldn't say I am an active astronomer—maybe passive. But I still appreciate the dark sky and think light pollution sucks when you are trying to observe the stars.

I have heard other astronomers talk about light pollution and the need to reduce it. I've also heard people celebrate the fact that we have a dark sky reserve here in South Australia, where there are rules about how much light can be used within it. But last night's talk wasn't just about the need to reduce light pollution to observe the stars—it was about the need to reduce light pollution for other reasons. These included wasting renewable energy, human health, crime rates, preservation of culture, and animal health.

To give you an example of what I mean, Kelly talked about how light has detrimental effects on all of these things and more. In relation to human health, she said that blue light has been linked to breast cancer, and light has been linked to obesity, sleep disorders, mental health issues, and disability glare. It also affects circadian rhythm and melatonin production. I can vouch for the last one—I know light has a lot to do with sleep and circadian rhythm from my experience with delayed sleep phase disorder.

The other point I found interesting was crime. She talked about how crimes like vandalism thrive in nighttime lighting. She also mentioned that lighting an area not meant for nighttime use could give users a false sense of security. Interestingly, Kelly said there is an association between brightly lit alleyways and increased crime. Her take was that light makes victims and property easy to see. She lobbies politicians about these issues, and I could see that it all made sense. If everything she mentioned is true, someone should do something about it.

However, I couldn't help but think to myself that the reason she wants a reduction in light pollution is so that she can see the stars. A lot of astronomers feel that way. I think bringing in all these other factors—like human and animal health, as well as crime rates—confuses the message. Are you crusading to end the health issues associated with artificial light? Or are you campaigning to save animals, particularly nocturnal ones?

Or do you want people to turn off streetlights in an attempt to curb criminal activity? Why not just say what you are and what you mean: “I am an astronomer, and I want to see the stars. Artificial light hinders that process.” All the other stuff means nothing unless you have been directly affected by it. You're making it about something it's not.

Don't get me wrong—I really liked Kelly. But it felt like she was saying all light is bad. Light is a beautiful thing, and as a woman, I would feel much safer walking down a well-lit street at night than a completely dark one.

Last Wednesday night, the 25th of September, I went to another movie at the Capri Theatre. The movie was called The Last Sky, and it was a fundraiser put on by Health Workers for Palestine in collaboration with the Australian Friends of Palestine Association. It was a full house; they sold 300 tickets and raised $8,000. They also mentioned that they made an additional $1,000 from the raffle.

The Last Sky was made and directed by Lebanese-Australian lawyer Nicholas Hanna and filmed in Lebanon and Occupied Palestine. It focused largely on the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon but also touched on Gaza. While watching the movie, I sat there in disbelief. After Nick pointed out that what Hamas did in Israel on the 7th of October last year was proven to be true, he painted both Hamas and Hezbollah in a positive light. I kept thinking about how my poor deceased father would have reacted if he had known I went to see a movie like this.  

After the movie ended, someone yelled out "Allahu Akbar," and people clapped. For a split second, I thought someone was going to blow the place up. There was a panel discussion with the director and a lawyer, Mr. Paul Heywood-Smith SC, and though I wanted to leave, curiosity got the better of me. Mr. Heywood-Smith made it clear that he did not condone the actions of Hamas or Hezbollah. I later learned that he had written a book titled The Case for Palestine: The Perspective of an Australian Observer, published by Wakefield Press in 2014, which I am now interested in reading.

As for Nick Hanna, a young woman raised her hand and mentioned that he had portrayed Hezbollah in a positive light, then went on to outline some of their human rights abuses. I can't recall everything he said in response, but he corrected her, saying she had some facts wrong. I forget what he said about Hezbollah, and to be honest, much of the movie is now a blur. What I do know is that every time I think I have a certain degree of clarity about the world and its people, I learn that, at 43, I am still naïve.

My mum has made the odd joke about how I once sent my best wishes to the Taliban, and while that might be funny in a way, I found nothing amusing about being in this cinema with those people last Wednesday night. I am concerned that there are people in Adelaide who appear to support terrorist organisations.

I had a meeting with the woman I report to in the human rights organisation I’m involved with, and she asked me about the movie. I told her how it appeared to support Hamas and Hezbollah. I then made it clear that I support the people of Palestine and will continue to do so—without supporting terrorists.

So, I'm jumping around a bit in this post, but on Monday night I went to my mosaics class, and I finally grouted that pot I've been working on. Grouting was straightforward—just a little messy—but it was all worth it. The teacher made me feel a bit stupid during the class, but that's okay. I'm just grateful to have found a mosaics teacher in Adelaide, even if she's all the way out in Gawler.

I’m in love with Gawler, so it’s a pleasure to go there. My pot looks incredibly amateur and juvenile, but I’m proud of it because it’s my first mosaicked piece. Hopefully, it will be the first of many. I used ceramic tiles for this pot, but from now on, I’m going to work with glass.

Below, you can see the finished product. As I said, I know it’s not perfect, but hopefully, you can see the potential for future work.