This is Gail

by O'Brien, Gail

  It was also agreed that Gail should continue in her direction as the ‘guardian of the vision’. But in the coming months she would repeatedly be reminded that the consent was limited. Guarding the vision meant that her interests seeped into every crevice of the organisation’s development, from the design of the building to the staff members, their training, even the artworks hanging on the walls. She was out there in the community telling people that Chris O’Brien Lifehouse would be different from other cancer hospitals. Chris had told countless audiences that the Lifehouse would have integrative, holistic services available. Now she was out there telling people the same. But was she standing out on a ledge alone?

  She continued to give speeches at dozens of community fundraisers, collecting cheques for anything from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. Elderly men and women passed around hats at Probus club meetings, people of all ages and means contributed. Gail couldn’t turn a blind eye to the prospect of a cent being wasted. She knew what the community wanted because she heard the requests directly. She responded with loyalty because these were the people Chris had served.

  The issue of protecting Chris’s name continued to consume my mother. Uniforms appeared that simply said ‘Lifehouse’ and the website domain was nothing more than LH. ‘Why can’t it be COB Lifehouse?’ Gail asked, and couldn’t believe the response: ‘Because people might get it confused with “Close of Business”.’ Gail recalled that Chris had spent his dying days toiling for Lifehouse and she was incensed that employees would tell her that her husband’s name wasn’t essential and should be dropped when it suited them. She persisted and tensions rose. ‘Everything everyone says gets back to me,’ Mum joked in a melodramatic tone one night. Thanks to a lifetime of friends and acquaintances throughout RPA, the Sydney Cancer Centre and the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, it almost seemed to be true.

  I have no doubt that people behaved differently towards my mother than they did towards my father. He had immense ‘moral authority’ in Tony Abbott’s words, thanks to his professional credentials and personal circumstances. He also had a strong, commanding presence. Meanwhile my mother seems soft, feminine and even sweet. She has a lifetime of personal experience, but no specialist letters after her name.

  My mother’s drive to protect and uphold my father’s name was formidable. Those big letters spelling ‘Chris O’Brien’ might not have been on the front of that glorious building today if it weren’t for her. But it came at a cost. When she agreed to be on the board, she hadn’t expected to take on such an active role, and when she did she hadn’t expected to encounter such resistance. The more time that passed, the greater resistance she met. And the more resistance she met, the more determined she became.

  The Deep End

  I know that my mother would speak to my father during these months, asking him to help her, to guide her, to send her the people and answers she needed.

  As she walked on her own and relished the solitude of Kelly’s Bush one day, the silence was broken by the familiar warbling of a magpie. It settled close to her in a white gum. The bird and woman looked at each other for a while before the magpie took flight, circled her and settled on her other side. It seemed to follow her down the path and as she reached a clearing, it hovered about three metres above her head for several seconds before flying off and leaving her alone. Her lessons in spiritual direction had opened her eyes and she would not miss any sign or opportunity by dismissing it.

  The architect produced magnificent designs for a beautiful built environment. Concerned that there would be too little money to realise the plans, Gail decided to pursue opportunities to raise more capital. She put herself in front of as many people of influence as she could. Any request to speak or advocate was a potential opening. She didn’t believe in dead ends because, as she said, ‘You don’t know how the dots are going to connect.’ Gail agreed to be the ‘health ambassador’ for Telstra’s ‘Ideas for Good’ initiative, thinking it could lead to a relationship with the Telstra Foundation. Being asked seemed like an honour too. ‘They could have asked anyone in the whole country to do this, but for some reason they chose me.’ I watched as she did various promotional appearances on TV and radio for the initiative. She had to start writing a blog. It was all time-consuming — and unpaid — and after a few months, it became obvious that a quid pro quo wasn’t part of the deal. She was already doing enough pro bono work for the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse; she didn’t need to be doing it for a huge company as well. She must have said as much to Telstra, because a meeting was arranged with the foundation. It duly took place, but seemed inconclusive.

  In May 2010 Gail was involved in publicity for Brain Tumour Awareness Week which resulted in her photograph being in the newspaper. The governor-general Quentin Bryce saw the image almost a year after she had presented Gail with Chris’s posthumous Officer of the Order of Australia insignia. It had been a poignant ceremony in the grand reception room of Admiralty House. I remember that the room filled with laughter when the secretary of the orders, Stephen Brady, read an email he had received from Dad with some advice about facing a Senate estimates committee. ‘Straight bat, protect your groin, let as many go through to the keeper as you can, feign exhaustion, memory loss or early dementia when really stuck. I will vouch for your incapacity to provide sane responses.’

  After seeing Gail’s photo in the paper, Quentin Bryce sent my mother an invitation to join her and Stephen for afternoon tea at Admiralty House. They greeted Gail warmly and after general conversation asked how Chris O’Brien Lifehouse was going. Prepared for this opportunity, Gail had taken the building plans with her. She showed them and talked about the progress. ‘Gosh, Gail, this is a bit more than doing fundraising for the library at the local school,’ Her Excellency said. She wanted to help, and suggested that she put Gail in touch with someone who might assist.

  Andrew Forrest, the Western Australian miner who had recently been named the richest man in the country, could hardly have rejected the governor-general’s suggestion that he meet with Gail. A date was set for the meeting at his apartment near the Opera House. In the preceding week, Gail told a senior Lifehouse executive her plans, but rather than being encouraging, he went red in the face and berated her for accepting. ‘I need to be there,’ he said. She replied that she had been given instructions to go on her own. ‘If there’s a second meeting you will certainly be included,’ she added. He didn’t seem mollified. The conversation turned to Telstra because it had been months since they had met with the foundation. For the first time she heard that the Telstra Foundation wasn’t interested in supporting them. Gail realised that nobody had bothered to let her know, despite the fact that she was still working as their Ideas for Good ambassador. ‘I’ll tell you what to do with Telstra—’ he started to say, but Gail cut him off. ‘I don’t need you to tell me what to do with Telstra.’

  Gail was fed up. All the time and energy she was putting into Chris O’Brien Lifehouse was costing her financially as well as emotionally. She was not earning a salary, nor had she any stable income to speak of, yet her time was consumed by speeches, presentations, meetings, conversations, emails and other tasks. I was encouraging her to take a step back, telling her that Dad would never have wanted her to be in this stressful position. But one objective was driving her: to do her best to make sure that the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse lived up to her husband’s name.

  A few days later Gail took a ferry to Circular Quay to meet Andrew Forrest. She had no idea how she would be received. She was worried that he must be thinking, What the hell is this woman coming to me for? Money, of course. What else?

  Gail was shown upstairs by the concierge and Andrew himself opened the door. He was younger than she’d expected and greeted her without any apparent suspiciousness. There was a vibrant energy about him that she recognised, and she relaxed immediately. Though she started her spiel about the hospital and its history, the conversation took a different turn. Gail was missing Chris so badly, and
she was feeling battered by some of the people who were supposed to be bringing his vision to life. As she talked with this kind and receptive person, she succumbed to the angst and tension that had been building inside. She became emotional. Andrew pulled out a perfectly ironed handkerchief and told her to keep it. The meeting went longer than expected and he was due at a forum where he was giving the main address. His parents-in-law arrived at the apartment ready to go to the event; they looked at Gail quizzically as he asked them to wait in another room while they finished.

  While this was happening, I was keeping an eye on the clock. As Mum’s sounding board at nearly every step along the way, I was waiting for the right time to call her and ask how it went. When I rang, she had retreated to a nearby café for a solitary hot chocolate. ‘It didn’t go as expected,’ she told me.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘I cried,’ said Gail.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ I was appalled and couldn’t hide it. But as Mum described the meeting I could see that she hadn’t embarrassed herself at all. After everything that had happened, she was unafraid to be real. It was not a weakness; it was her strength. Gail’s conversations — and now friendship — with Andrew Forrest continue to this day.

  Throughout this period, the number of community talks my mother was giving increased to as many as several each week — a plethora of Probus club meetings all around Sydney, Rotary, schools, fundraisers. Events might have been local or regional as she travelled to the Shoalhaven region, Narrandera, Mudgee, Dubbo, Milton, Young and many other towns in country New South Wales. It didn’t matter whether the meetings were large or small. In Dubbo she went to the Stock and Stations ball, where the MC announced that as a fundraiser men could pay $50 for a dance with her.

  By the end of 2010, Gail told her sister Linda that she was exhausted from it all. ‘But it’s so important, Gail, that you keep Chris’s name alive,’ said Linda. She suggested that at the next board meeting Gail should present her diary throughout the year and use that to request some support. She should emphasise that there was a hunger for Chris’s story and his values in the community, a feeling that should be capitalised on. Gail collated her diary, consisting of hundreds of engagements. When the board papers arrived in the post and she checked the agenda, she saw that her item was last. She considered this placement indicative of their level of interest, so as soon as the meeting opened Gail interrupted Sam. ‘Excuse me, chairman, I’d like my item to be brought forward to number three please.’ Some people looked slightly shocked. Sam huffed and grumbled something about seeing what happened, but did call on her soon after.

  Linda suggested that Gail meet a friend and colleague, Karen Bristow, who worked in public relations and could help her to prepare speeches, arrange logistics and give advice. After meeting the woman Gail steeled herself to ring Sam and suggest that Karen be brought on in a paid capacity to assist her. She never knew how he would react to her suggestions, but in this case he was receptive and invited both women for a meeting at his home. Here, Gail saw Sam in a different light for the first time. He obviously loved his wife, Sue, and his dog, Wilson, a giant schnauzer. Karen, a talkative country girl who gets on with everybody, won Sam over quickly and he agreed that she should work with Gail. With Karen’s help, the work became enjoyable and manageable. As a director Gail was told she still could not be paid, but Karen was, giving their work together an acknowledgment of value.

  When the NSW Liberal Party took office as the state government in 2011, Gail was told that the chief executive, Tim Dugan, and Lifehouse board member Max Moore Wilton had a meeting with the new state premier, Barry O’Farrell. The former secretary of John Howard’s Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the chairman of many boards, Max was known as a tough administrator. Gail telephoned him and suggested that she attend the meeting too. He agreed that it might be helpful and the three attended together. The meeting was a positive one and indicated that Chris O’Brien Lifehouse had this new government’s support. At the end, the then treasurer Mike Baird motioned out the window and said to Gail. ‘I think Chris is happy.’ She craned her neck. A vibrant rainbow against the dark sky filled her eyes. She turned back to the treasurer, who was mirroring her smile. ‘Yes, he does that, you know,’ she said.

  There were times when Gail and Sam Chisholm continued to clash, and her relationships with other board members continued to have their troublesome moments.

  Six weeks after Adam died, Gail was determined to attend the final board meeting of the financial year, despite her trauma. She had spent weeks working on a fundraising proposal and had been waiting for the opportunity to present it to the directors. Again, it was clear to her that she was seen to be overstepping the mark. The chairman had acquiesced and put it on the upcoming board meeting’s agenda but when the day came, Sam grunted hello and a senior executive did not look her in the eye. Even though everybody had attended Adam’s funeral weeks earlier and been sorry and supportive, their compassion did not necessarily extend to the boardroom.

  Gail could tolerate it no longer. That night she wrote a long email that was her strongest protest against the treatment she had received. She condemned the behaviour she had encountered not just that day, but for the previous two years. ‘The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse is supposed to look after people exactly like myself — it is supposed to mirror a kind, caring, compassionate culture,’ she wrote. Yet they couldn’t even show it to one of their own.

  James and I were looking over Mum’s shoulder at the computer as she finished writing. ‘Shall I press send?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, do it!’ we said.

  The next day, Mum went out. The home phone rang several times, and I eventually answered it.

  ‘Sam Chisholm here, is your mother there?’

  ‘No she’s not.’

  ‘When do you think she’ll be home?’

  ‘Sam, to be honest, I don’t think she wants to speak to you.’ I told him that I thought that he and certain members of the executive had treated my mother appallingly. We talked for forty-five minutes — something I would never have considered doing before Adam died, having felt deferential to Sam. But I was starting to understand how my mother had shaken off caring about things like overstepping her boundaries or what people thought.

  ‘Did anyone even acknowledge my brother’s death at the board meeting?’ I asked. To my surprise, Sam was receptive to my forthrightness. He listened to everything I said and talked to me as an equal.

  I told Mum all of this when she arrived home. The next day, Sam Chisholm rang again several times. ‘I still don’t want to speak to him,’ she said, but eventually she answered.

  ‘Well, I got this email—’ he started saying, but Gail quickly leapt in.

  ‘I’m not going to start explaining myself to you, Sam.’

  ‘All right. Now, let’s talk about this.’

  Gail told him everything she thought and felt, all of the moments of anguish and insult that she’d encountered. She was bowling fast balls at him more strongly than she ever would have expected. He received everything with his trademark curtness but always invited a solution and encouraged all she had to say. After an hour and a half he said, ‘If you’ve been made to feel like that, well, I apologise.’

  ‘I forgive you, Sam,’ Gail said, feeling exhausted.

  ‘I don’t need forgiveness,’ he retorted.

  ‘Isn’t that what we’re all here for, Sam? Love and forgiveness?’

  ‘All right then, let’s profess undying love for one another, and get on with it.’

  From that moment on, Sam Chisholm was regarded with some fondness in the O’Brien home. He was a bull in a china shop, but he had courage and refused to ‘leave things swinging in the breeze’. Over the years Gail would see the softer sides of not only Sam, but many of the people and personalities she had come to know. The process had been painful, yet she had learned so much about herself and others, about human frailties, relationships and ego.

&nb
sp; Bob McMillan became particularly close to my mother. A knockaround bloke who described himself as ‘just a printer’, Bob was a businessman who sold his large printing company for a fortune, and a friend of Chris’s and powerful supporter of the SHNCI, the Sydney Cancer Centre and Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. Chris had met Bob when he drove to the hospital one Saturday to check on a patient and arrived cursing the owner of a huge Bentley that was parked across three spaces after he had been forced to circle the car park. ‘Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner,’ he said to his patient. ‘Some clown in a Bentley is taking up three spaces.’

  ‘That’d be me,’ came a jocular voice from the corner. It was Bob McMillan, who was visiting the same man.

  Gail saw that when Bob became mad or frustrated it could be a case of ‘He’s gonna blow!’ but she witnessed equally tender moments: he wiped tears from his cheeks as he walked his daughter down the aisle and trailed after his family with food and drink in his car as they rode in a 200-kilometre bicycle ride fundraiser. Some nights I would arrive home at night to find Mum sitting on the couch talking animatedly to Bob on the phone. Her heels would be propped up on the coffee table next to a glass of wine, just as Dad used to do. ‘Bob’s my mate now,’ she’d say, hanging up the phone.