“It is with great sadness that…”
You’re crying before you reach the end of the sentence.
***
It’s not a shock. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two years ago; you knew that the trials hadn’t worked, that her only course of treatment was palliative, that she had taken a turn for the worse.
But still the tears fall.
***
One of your colleagues hugs you, because today is a strange day, and people are crying and buying each other coffees and hugging those they don’t know well.
“I know it’s a cliche,” he says, “but days like today remind you how short life is, how we need to make the most of the time we have.”
“Just because it’s a cliche,” you reply, “doesn’t make it any less true.”
***
“If there’s even a slight chance of getting something that will make you happy, risk it. Life’s too short, and happiness is too rare.”
***
You clashed with her, in all honesty. You saw no justice in her being right just because she was your CEO; you were fiery and headstrong and thought you knew better.
***
This year you’ve watched in awe as friends have gambled their life savings on long-held dreams and followed their hearts across oceans and tried for a baby after countless miscarriages.
You’ve seen their faces when they’re turning people away on a Friday night because the restaurant is too busy, and they’re running out of food; when they’ve booked their flights and are counting down the days until they’re reunited with their partner; when they introduce you to their new daughter, pulsing with pride and happiness.
***
She had 25 years on you, you think now. Of course you didn’t know better.
***
You’ve lost count of all the things you’ve said you’ll do this year: climb Mount Kilimanjaro, write a book, open a prosecco bar, dole out glitter at festivals, record a podcast about Australia, travel to new countries, start your own communications consultancy.
Your book sits at 506 words, your podcast one drunk voice memo; your Mount Kilimanjaro trek nothing but a bookmarked webpage.
***
“Do you know why I’m so hard on you?” she asked you once. “Because you’re good – but you have the potential to be great.”
***
You’ve felt slightly displaced this year, as if you’re on the verge of some great change. You’ve wondered at times if it’s your heart telling you that it’s time to move home, but every time you seriously consider it, something inside you whispers: Not yet.
In May your Permanent Residency comes through, and with it an overwhelming sense of possibility, and new beginnings. See? your heart whispers. Listen to me. Have courage.
***
Some days she would call you into her office to discuss some work and she’d smile and say she loved it, and you’d feel like you’d been given the world.
***
In July, you go back to the UK to watch your eldest brother marry the love of his life, and the day is perfect.
You catch up with friends and family in countryside pubs and canalside bars; you celebrate your birthday several times over; you meet boyfriends and babies, drink to engagements and promotions; you share a bottle of wine with your best friend and make plans – real plans, serious plans – to climb Mount Kilimanjaro next October.
One Saturday towards the end of your trip, you pack a small bag and fly to Lebanon for five nights, where the noise and heat assault your senses and you eat incredible food and the electricity goes off for three hours a day and everyone you meet welcomes you like you’re family.
***
Your Chairman releases a public statement:
“The world is immeasurably better because of her. She was authentic, vulnerable, strong and wise – full of energy and conviction. She lived her life in service to others, always striving to make a difference to the lives of those around her, never losing sight of those less fortunate. We are forever indebted to her for the profound impact she had on us and as a result – today we grieve a great loss.”
***
When you get back from the UK, you go to the Blue Mountains for a weekend of hiking and wine and deep sleep. One morning, high up on a windy ridge, you find out that she’s taken a turn for the worse.
“Her fight is nearly over,” reads the message, and you feel such sadness for everything that she is, everything that could have been but no longer will be. Life is too short, you think. We must make the most of the time we have – take risks, tell people we love them, be happy.
***
In September, a friend emails you a job advert they’ve seen during their own hunt. “It’s your dream job!” she says, and it is – so perfect that you think: They’ll never pick me.
And then: But what if they do?
***
In October, you meet someone, and he is perfect.
***
You submit your CV and covering letter four nights before the deadline. A phone interview the following week; a formal interview a few days later, an informal coffee, references.
When they call you to offer you the job – your dream job, the job you’ve wanted from the moment you arrived in Australia – you think: She would be proud of me.
***
On one of your early dates, he hands you a map with three countries circled in red.
“Choose where you’d like to go with me,” he says.
An Asian food market; a Cuban rum festival; burgers and a country band in a basement bar. In his bag he has a raincoat for you, because the weather has been unpredictable; some cardboard, in case the grass is muddy; a bottle of wine, in case the queues are too long.
Oh god, you think. I’m falling for you.
***
Life is hard, and it is messy; this year has been so full of sadness, and endings, and change.
You wrote that two years ago; it’s still true, you think. Is this just what life is like now?
All around you, in the papers and online, people are queuing up to reflect on the year gone by. It’s been awful, they say, the worst; hopeless and uncertain and cruel. Roll on 2018.
But they said the same thing last year, you think, the year that our country chose a Blue passport over freedom, and America let racism win. This is just what life is like now.
***
He is kind and thoughtful and funny; you can’t stop smiling when you’re with him.
***
Life, now, is harder for some than others. You listened to her brother speak at the funeral, heard him describe in flat tones the last days of her life; you saw her husband staring at the floor, a close friend, in the pew in front, rocking back and forth in silent grief.
In America, a former game show host dismantles basic human rights and environmental protections. Australia is remote, but you have never felt the weight of your own privilege so keenly.
You know what she would say: Start with what you can do. Have courage. Stand up for what is right. Making a difference to one person still makes a difference. Be happy. Hold onto the good moments, the hope and the joy; use them to drive out the darkness.
***
“I love you,” you say. “And I know it probably seems too soon, and it’s absolutely fine if you don’t feel the same, but life’s too short not to tell you how I feel.”
***
You think of her more frequently than you imagined you would. You hear her voice in your head, giving you advice; you hear her laughter. She is a great loss.
***
“I love you too.”
You are crying before he finishes the sentence.
***