Filling in the Gaps
Page 9
Closing Thoughts
I am grateful for many things. Sach knows how I feel about him and hopefully my family and friends know how much they mean to me too. I am also excited that in my seventieth year I am able to put pen to paper and leave a little behind me after I have left this world - which can’t be too far away after the latest blood test results! Sach and I also hate seeing announcements being made about new buildings or projects that are scheduled to open in twenty years or so when we almost certainly will not be here to experience them. I am also saddened to see new little nephews who are just months old, knowing I will almost certainly never see their 21st birthday.
Never having had any children, we look to our dogs as our pride and joy. When I wrote my last book we had four beautiful dogs but we lost two of them, Rudy and Bijou, last year and I swear that I could not have been more upset if they had been children. I cried for days and couldn’t go to work. Little Bijou had a heart attack in my arms and my dear Rudy lost his eyesight and would just keep walking into walls. As I knew his life was coming to an end I would get in the car with him and sit with him on the beach as the sun rose each morning. He could not see but he loved lying in my arms as the sun’s warmth enveloped him. I even kept their little rugs.
Then late last year we received a phone call from our dog groomer who advised us that one of her clients, a lady in her thirties, had terminal cancer and had to give up her four-year-old dog or have it put down. Sach ran around to the lady’s home and instantly fell in love with Charlie. The saddest thing was that as Sach was saying goodbye to the lady and she was kissing Charlie goodbye her ex-husband turned up to take her eight-year-old twins because she was also unable to care for them anymore. Sach too was in tears as he drove away. Saddest experience for that poor woman! She phoned a couple of times and seemed calm, knowing that her beautiful pet was fitting in here. We haven’t heard from her in a while so she may already have passed on. Our other rescued dog is an eight-month-old terror called Marley, who is like a hyper flea but too cute to chastise too much! Both dogs are very needy and always like to sleep with their chins across our leg, arm or sometimes our neck! We simply love them.
Before I finish this epistle I thought I would let you know that I still haven’t lost my touch for doing stupid things and doing them well! Last week I was having a drink with pals after work and munching on those really hard and very spicy, yellowish bar nuts when suddenly one of my back teeth cracked in half. So thinking I would be very clever and hopefully have it restored at the dentist, I kept the broken bit in my little pill container. How I hate going to the dentist - a little prick goes a long way - so I have not yet ventured into the surgery. The main reason, apart from fear, is that the other night I woke up with a headache in the middle of the night and in the dark reached out for my pill container, popped it open and picked up what I thought was a pill. I later discovered that I had swallowed the broken half of the tooth! I haven’t decided whether to wait until it reappears or bravely call my dentist.
I hate to leave Sach out of this so I feel it my duty to add one of his little hiccups recently. He has so few, which is probably why it was a shock. Our neighbour across the road from us had a car on the lawn for sale for one thousand dollars, so you have a good idea of how smart this automobile was. We had only owned it for one hour when Sach ploughed into the back of a car - on the way to license the new car in his name. As soon as I knew he was okay I had to keep my temper in check - but really, one hour! We still have that car but there is a leak in the exhaust. If we are parked too long with the engine running, even at traffic lights, we start to feel a bit drowsy because so much of the exhaust is escaping into the car. So one day... who knows! We have never been able to afford an automatic car. The car John Frost and I owned had no hand brake, so we had to always park on a hill with bricks under the wheels and whenever we turned a sharp corner the horn would go off and a door fly open! We also still have our little Matiz, even though we can’t start it, because it was the car in which we transported Debbie Reynolds and her late PA, Jenny Powers, around Perth and they just loved it.
I also feel that it’s time to give Sach his credit as the host and organiser of Morning Melodies at Mandurah Performing Arts Centre. He spends a great deal of time researching, booking and hosting the events and with great success, as per the article below. I cannot express how proud of him I am. We even have people booking for the shows just to see him. I guess that once show business is in the blood it’s there forever. He has flown onto the stage as the Flying Nun or as an elf or just as himself - a suave host. Although I am very proud of him I have never watched him host the show because I am nervously lying prostrate backstage in case it doesn’t go well. I watch clips later.
Getting older is indeed a bitch. My youngest sister, Patsy Gaye, fifteen years younger than me, enters hospital next week to have both breasts removed because she has the same gene as Angelina Jolie, which means she has a 97% chance of developing breast cancer without the operation. She is much braver than me and her quite frightening decision is an inspiration to others. So there are challenging times ahead with all of our family health issues but my amazing support group keeps my head above water.
People often ask me what I would most like in my life right now. The most important thing would be good health for me as well as for my family and friends, and to be financially secure. On a lighter note, my biggest source of envy and biggest peeve right now is seeing people who are able to use the priority lines, especially at airports, where we invariably end up at the end of a very long queue while the priority persons just waltz through to the VIP club!
I thank you for continuing or starting on this crazy journey of my life with me. I am very grateful and I have enjoyed every minute of reliving it all and I hope that you have enjoyed at least a little of it. I will keep on being the eccentric person I probably am - no doubt of it, according to Sach - and continue to drive Sacha and others to distraction, but hopefully not intentionally hurting anyone as I do so.
I often feel as though I have an ‘angel on my shoulder’. The words of a favourite song come to mind as I finish this book. They have been changed slightly, but are apt.
‘Now, I’ve known the fears of seventy years I’ve had troubles and tears by the score but the only thing I’d trade them for is seventy seven more...’
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