Not too peachy

The youngest is still crook in bed after skipping up a storm in Canberra.

I texted her at lunchtime yesterday to ask if she wanted anything from Woolies and she replied: “Yes please, can I have some no-sugar Lindt chocolate and a hard peach?”

So specific!

I delivered both obscure items to her bedside last night. Go me.

In far less peachy news, it was announced yesterday that NSW Governor Margaret Beazley had accepted the Kathleen Folbigg inquiry findings, so the convictions for the deaths of her four children will stand.

I still haven’t quite processed it, hence my blather about peaches.

The result doesn’t sit well with me, it feels like the government has made the big problem go away by singing la-la-la instead of closely examining the expert submissions into the case.

I have read the reports by genetic experts, psychiatrists and pathologists that were submitted to the inquiry. They all suggest reasonable doubt.

Medical evidence was pushed aside in favour of weaponising Kathy’s journals, despite assessments that suggested her words were consistent with someone suffering survivor guilt.

I read psychiatrist Michael Diamond’s assessment of Kathy last night. What Kathy told him about the trauma she felt as she lost one child after another was heartbreaking. She said she felt constant terror following the birth of each of her children, petrified that she would lose them. She wept uncontrollably as she told him about each of their deaths.

I am disappointed that her ex-husband’s refusal to provide DNA for genetic testing was swept under the carpet.

If the government was truly interested in making the right judgement it would have insisted on the DNA being provided.

When I saw Kathy a few weeks ago she was hopeful that Margaret Beazley would take the time to look closely at the evidence and not simply rubber stamp the judge’s findings.

But it wasn’t to be.

I don’t know how Kathy is coping right now, but I expect her mental state is not good.

She has almost 10 more years to serve in jail before she is eligible for parole.

She will be in her 60s by then.

I find it so terribly sad.

The Justice for Kathleen Folbigg team vowed yesterday that it is not over, that she is innocent and that they will keep on fighting until they are heard.

They are a determined lot.

A beautiful morning has dawned, reminding me that my problems are small in the grand scheme of things.

And, like the saying goes: “The same boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It’s about what you’re made of, not the circumstances.”

I’m more potato than egg these days and some would say that’s a failing.

But I think there’s enough hardness in the world already.

Actually, one of the parables that inspired the saying includes a third option: ground coffee beans.

They change the boiling water and create something new.

The coffee beans are what I want to be.

And on that philosophical note it’s time for me to rise and chase my caffeine fix.