Redsultana

This is from a friend of mine who wants to share the story of her brother with as many people as possible. I wish I could be as inspirational as the mother in this true story.

“The short version… On my youngest daughters’ 5th birthday I received a phonecall at 6.00 at night from my sister-in-law to say that my brother was driving a truck at his best mate’s house when their 7 year old (only child) son fell under the back wheel and was killed instantly.

“The shock was unimaginable and immediately I thought this would be the last straw for my brother. How wrong I was… His friends (Max and Pip – not their real names) had bought this truck and bobcat with the idea of helping my brother get on his feet and realise a dream, whilst they made some income by leasing the equipment to him. It was his first day on the job and he was returning the truck “home”.

“Their young boy, well known for being accident prone, reckless, etc. was sooo excited to see my brother (incidentally they share the same name) that he ran up and right alongside the truck – out of sight of the mirrors. His Dad called to him to get away from the truck, but he fell, and that was it.

“First my brother knew of it was when he parked the truck about 6 metres away and looked in the mirror. By that time his Dad was with him and knew it was over. You can imagine the ensuing scenes, but what you don’t know is that while cradling her son Pip yelled at Max and my brother to never, ever blame themselves, it was nothing but a freak accident – which all investigations, etc confirmed. And she has NEVER wavered from that belief.

“She has shown absolute love, compassion, honesty, acceptance and supreme courage throughout the following weeks, even supporting the priest through a difficult, and yet celebratory/joyous, funeral. She has always said her beautiful son has been the inspiration for her strength and capacity to continue with love, and joy for the happy memories.

“Despite having her tubes “tied” she has decided on a reversal and to have 2 more children if possible, already! I truly believe that she has the angel archetype (and young Sam (not his real name) did too, having spoken of his connection to God at only 7 years of age!), and her message is simple – be grateful, loving, maintain faith and hope and move on, and never forget the gift of those you love, however long you have them.

“It is this lesson, and their example of human nature at it’s best -under the most testing conditions – that I feel compelled to share. They have also saved my brother’s life, in staying his best friends and allowing him into their grief, the three of them sharing in the process together. I am sure that the 4 of them have played out a karmic episode and have a profound life contract together. That means there is a purpose… a goodness to come out of it.

“By reaching as many people as I can with their story, I hope that will be just part of it.”

Right well I was so tired after redesigning this site on Wednesday night that I can’t really say how the writing I love you experiment went – I was too tired!

So today I’m going to try writing “Thin” somewhere on my person… perhaps my thighs just for fun. Maybe I’ll write it twice. Just for good measure. Maybe writing thin on my thighs will encourage me to exercise and refuse chocolate. Maybe the molecular structure of the fat inside my thighs will realign itself and become easier to shift.

Experiment:
Measure circumference of thighs. Write Thin on one thigh. At then end of five days with Thin on one thigh, measure thighs again. If the “Thin” thigh has become thinner – write Thin on other thigh!

Yeah.

I’ll give it a few days and report back.

They say change is as good as a holiday – but what if the change is while you’re on holiday already – do they cancel out?

I went to see What The Bleep Do We Know today. This is a film that either opens your mind or blows it away and I’m not sure where I fit into that. In many ways it was easy to accept. After all the whole theory that matter is really possibilities or thoughts fits in with my reaction to mind-altering substances. I lie there going “Oh my God! Is this all there is?” and perhaps I am closer to “God” at that time than any other.

But it all tends to go in a vicious cycle of paranoia – hilarity – and desire so, no, don’t think I’ll go back there.

I’d prefer to meditate to create my own day.

I’d especially like to create a reality where bathers looked better on me. Went shopping for a one-piece today. Grim indeed but as Melissa would say “That’s not for here!”

What I loved most about the film was Emoto’s Water Crystals. As I am largely made up of water tonight I am going to sleep with a sign on me saying “I love you”. It will be interesting to see if different signs effect my day…

In fact it had started the night before at Madeleine and Mark’s where Freddie thrashed Mark at Counterstrike but not Rory who won 7:4. Rory wants me to record this as he recognises that his perfect record is likely to be ruined if he ever plays Freddie again!

Hugo was delighted to spend time with his cool older cousins who go back to Singers this afternoon. Madeleine cooked the most delicious meal – including a to-die-for pavlova.

So I’m finished work and now it’s just getting ready for our trip and sorting out a few things at home – like Hugo’s bedroom. Where does one find the time to live when one works I ask you?

I would like to start today’s report by saying that in all this talk of take off speeds and weights and runway distance and part composition, and with rows of suits and competing interests and shifting blame that we are talking about the death of my very dear friend. Of a real person. Which is why I’m posting this photo of Harry and the fabulous Janet.

Today the final passenger of the aircraft, Ozan spoke via telephone in the US. I wasn’t there for his testimony but read the transcript later. He describes how Harry fell against him on impact and that he couldn’t rouse him.

Then the court went out to Jandakot.

Back at Number 10 in the afternoon we listened to the pilot’s statements and cross by the counsel for the coroner. The pilot has a smoker’s voice, not deep but gravelly, like a rumble. He looks old in the witness box and it is hard not to feel some sympathy for him.

He was the last person alive today to see our Harry. Listening to him describe how he left the plane and left Harry was very hard to hear. But I wanted to hear it. I wanted to know every detail of his last minutes. And it WAS shocking. We hadn’t heard or read his testimony before. I cannot tell you how devastating it was.

This is such an exercise in not judging. I sit there and struggle not to judge. I wasn’t there. I don’t know how I would have reacted. I can rationally understand their panic. But deep down, there is a part of me, an irrational part of me perhaps, a part of me I’m not sure I want to own, who wishes they had been more noble and not left my friend behind.

Yesterday Harry’s mum said to me: “It doesn’t matter, I don’t care what they find, what they say – nothing will bring my Harry back.” Those words haunt me today.

Two more things from today: How I wish they would say his last name correctly. There is NO SECOND ‘R’ in his surname!

And one more thing: Apparently Ozan was asked if he had brought any manuals onto the flight with him, and Mike turned round and said : “We didn’t need manuals, we had Harry.”

I’m going south this weekend. If things were different I may have been going down with Harry and his family too. I wish they were different.

Today was very different at Courtroom 10. It was the start of the personal testimony from the two wives of the men who had died and the fellows who survived the crash.

Listening to J talk about Harry was lovely – I was transported back to that big loud, sometimes clumsy, lovable Greek guy that I knew – with a razor sharp intellect and a generous heart. It was hard to accept again that he was no longer a part of our lives.

As well we got to hear about Steve and I was left with the wistful wish that I had met him.

The guy from Harry’s company was hopeless I’m sorry to say. It was as if they had looked at who was available from the company to speak and then chosen the least able. He might be a nice guy, I don’t know him but he was ill prepared and ill chosen for his task. You could not believe that the company had done even the most basic research. If they had, they certainly had not passed the results on to their spokesman. I think a few of us were frustrated and disappointed with his testimony and disappointed that they appeared to treat the court and their fallen comrades with such contempt.

Then we heard from two of the guys who were in the plane when it went down. They described the panic to get out of the plane after the flight went down. The darkness in the cabin. The smoke. They said they didn’t see anyone (certainly not Harry) as they exited the plane. It is hard to believe they didn’t see him but who knows what it must have been like. They were lucky to survive. It is just heartbreaking for us that Harry didn’t.

Tomorrow we hear from the third passenger to survive and the pilot. I don’t envy him.

The overall impression one is left with after sitting in the Coroner’s Court today is that the only people this is for are the lawyers. There is no attempt by the Coronor Mr Hope to project his voice above a mumble and for us sitting behind three rows of lawyers and their assistants there is no hope of hearing what is going on. They know there are family members with hearing difficulties on top of that in the gallery. J is sat right up the front where she can hear and where the counsel can see her. She who has been so affected by the crash.

Grey pinstripe is the fashionable suit material for lawyers this year by the way.

When proceedings started this morning the courtroom was packed. Standing room only. With the media bunched near the door on spare chairs. The Coroner mumbled something and made all the counsel stand up and explain why they felt they needed to be there. He then suggested that they wouldn’t all need to be there all the time. Hmmm. Noone made any move to leave.

Then the Coroner’s man got up and went through his opening statement and about two hours later we heard the first witness – the police investigator. Two things stay in my memory from his testimony. The fact that he pronounced debris as day-briss and he called CALM – Conversation and Land Management. We could have used some conversation management when the questions started. The guy from the airport went on forever.

We heard the recording from the Air Traffic Control – the silences more eloquent than the voices bristling with three letter acronyms. We saw vision from Channel 9 – no sound – not very clear. And we saw film taken by the police at the scene including Harry’s covered body. It was in black and white and had the sounds of the cameraman walking through the bush -you know that crackling sound – and camera shutters going off. You could see the flashes from the camera. The courtroom was silent apart from Harry’s mum softly weeping behind me. It was surreal and I couldn’t connect in my mind the footage with the vibrant memories I have of my friend.

Afterwards – and it seemed to finish abruptly at about 2.30pm – we stood around outside while J had a meeting with her lawyer. The media quite sweetly asked if we would be leaving through the front entrance and kept coming up while we were waiting. Eventually J came out and we formed a group and walked out together through the front doors and out.

All this grief. All this money spent on lawyers, reporting, investigating. All this. For a $1000 part.