Selfless powerhouse of love

When my friend's husband died suddenly of an undiagnosed heart condition she fell apart the way anyone would if they had lost a brilliant, loving, supportive, inspiring life partner. She reached out for help and she leaned on those who loved her (and there are a lot of us) as the inconceivable and terrible truth sank in. 

That lasted for maybe a few days. Because she is herself a brilliant, loving, supporting and inspiring individual. To start with she had three children of her own to look after and two step-children who needed her presence, even as she her world rocked on it's foundations and threatened to crumble. She had parents with significant health issues and health issues of her own. One of her daughters was in the middle of year twelve and her son was five, so starting school was imminent.

Like so many women, she didn't have the ability to let her world crumble around her soul crushing grief, she had to limp on. And she did so in a unique and inspiring way.

First, she and her sister reached out, asked for and accepted help. That was the birth of an amazing community. A freezer was delivered and meals were coordinated for three months. People came and helped with the garden, the house, and one special individual even came and hung Christmas lights on her house. 

And this community has grown, we reach out to each other now and ask for and offer help. She has shown us the power and joy of community and given us a way to help each other.

But that was just the beginning. The day of the funeral she came home to a house full of flowers and a heart that felt as hollow and hurt as it's possible to feel. She looked at her children and she said, we have to embrace life... even if we don't feel it yet, even if it hurts, because that's what daddy would have wanted us to do, and because life is precious. 

They pledged that every day they would do something life affirming, even if they didn't want to... and that day they took apart the funeral flowers and rearranged them into beautiful bunches that they drove out to the hospice over the border. They took their grief and transformed it into a gift for others.

She's made it her mission to speak to people publicly about the importance of getting your heart checked, and has stood up at meetings, and in her work. In the process she has saved so many lives. Even though it costs to share her story, in the sharing is the impact for others, the incentive to go out and get checked. I know I did and I've read so many posts of people who found issues and addressed them before they festered.

She's written about her grief on social media, in a way that has touched us all, sharing her journey, not in the curated fashion of so many social media feeds, but with a raw, intense honesty that will help all of us when we meet the spectre of death in our lives. She's even put together a book proposal (she's a talented, multi published writer) for a book on grief, to share her insights with others. And if it's anything like her posts, it will transform the way we look at grief, because she's certainly done that for me.

And she's making plans for a charity to provide the kind of practical help that she asked for and received in the early days. 

Because that's who she is. She is a maker of great magic, a creator of communities, an inspiring woman who goes above and beyond for strangers as well as friends, who builds people up even when her world is falling apart.

And because of the positive approach she's taken to this tragedy, two years on her children are thriving, her life is transforming and she is still the shining inspiration I look to when I want to know how to manage a difficult situation.

She's a secret treasure in the Queanbeyan community and I'd love to see her recognised for it, even though I've kept her name private, as I'm not sure if she'd be comfortable about the public accolade.