Once I had a friend. A real, real friend.
We had worked together for 4 or 5 years, during which time we were merely colleagues. But after we had both left Higher Ed Systems – at different times – we became friends.
I think it was that she had recognized in me a soulmate: an intolerant and impatient bitch, basically – because that’s what we had in common, to start with.
But our friendship grew and lasted, so there must have been more to it than our peccadilloes. I came to rely on Diana for sensible input on anything I was unsure of; and she to rely on me for solutions to her knitting and/or crochet problems.
While I was still living in Sydney, she would come down from Brisbane to visit – i.e., check out and look after – her mother, who lived in a house sort of next-door to Diana’s brother Victor and his wife, out in Richmond. Bloody miles away ! Diana was a good and dutiful daughter, and bore the entire load of her mum’s care, organizing and arranging and .. well, everything. I benefited from this, because she would always come and spend a few days with me when in NSW.
She was a control freak, admitting it but stating that most of the people in her life needed controlling. 🙂 For reasons I never understood, I let her control me, too: it was necessary to her functioning and it never hurt or offended me. We got along really well.
She was a dedicated .. erhmm .. walker ? I was tempted to say bushwalker, but that she travelled all over the world – sometimes alone, mostly with a friend – to undertake walks. By far her best and most loved companion on these travels was Eril, who was able to put up with being organized/controlled mostly happily – and probably for the same reason as mine. When Diana was away she would email me photographs almost every day: her travels were mine, vicariously, and she never failed me.
She would sometimes come down to visit me after I’d moved to Victoria, on more than one occasion arriving on one of my many moving days; and these times were when I appreciated her most – for she would unpack me. Oh, it was wonderful: all that stuff wrapped in butchers’ paper – neatly folded in a pile and the contents arranged as she thought best .. mostly remained there, too.
We used to talk on the phone a lot, exchanging opinions and whingeing. 🙂 We both liked a good whinge and shared many and many an opinion on the status quo – the tradie of today and his absolute unreliability being a favourite, along with the attitude to their jobs of today’s youth.
She loved the theatre and went often – movies, too. I valued her opinions enormously: I recall being frightfully disappointed when she said I shouldn’t see “The Lost King” because I would find it superficial and irritating. I’m quite sure she was correct; Richard III is my historical hero, and I wouldn’t want the discovery of his remains made into a kind of light-hearted romp.
I’m bereft without Diana. Why would someone who didn’t smoke come down with lung cancer ?! Familial, I suppose. She was diagnosed in June, Eril said; but she didn’t tell me until July, by email, saying how much she hated having to tell me. By then the various annoying little problems she had been experiencing were rapidly coalescing into one: still she had hope, and undertook to do everything they advised.
She had five and a half months to live. She was 67.
I find it impossible to write about her truly, as the interesting, intelligent, good-looking, thinking woman she was, who never forgot to call me on January 29th every year. I find it impossible to believe she’s not still up there in Brisbane ..
I miss her though, most dreadfully.
I just don’t like it. I mean I HATE it.
DOWNUNDER WITH BOODZ 