Unimaginable

I was awed by the strength of a friend yesterday, who farewelled her daughter on the same day her husband died eight years ago.

It is unimaginable that she has lost her husband and her only child, who was just 19.

My heart ached very badly as I hugged her tightly after the memorial service.

Like me, she’s not really a hugger, but what else do you do when faced with something so unfathomable?

The church overflowed and the whole RSL club next door was filled with mourners watching the live stream.

My friend gave the most incredible eulogy for her daughter, filled with love and gentle humour.

Friends, relatives and the daughter’s heartbroken boyfriend also stood up to tell stories that were both beautiful and incredibly moving.

Afterwards, DD and I sat with a lovely woman at the wake who told us about her 11-year stint as an aid worker in Malawi.

I felt undone by the strength and resilience of those around me.

I just wanted to go somewhere quiet and weep.

It got to the point where I couldn’t make small talk any more. I went outside to cry and wait for the youngest, who was driving up to the Northern Beaches to collect me.

When I got in the car she handed me a gift.

She and the eldest had ordered a belated Mother’s Day gift for me. It was from, coincidentally, a jeweller called Alana Maria.

It’s a necklace with three tiny discs on it and every disc has been engraved with an initial to represent each of us. It came with a card that said beautiful things about how they couldn’t wish for a better mum and I cried all over again.

It really wasn’t the best day for Ticketmaster to mess with me, but Ticketmaster decided to be an arsehole anyway.

The youngest wanted to see Coldplay in concert in Perth, so we decided to try and go together as a post-HSC celebration.

I got in the queue and was so excited to see I was in 9000th place. It’s not often that being in 9000th place is thrilling, but I thought it meant I was in with a chance for tickets.

During the presale on Monday there were a record 300,000 people in the queue. Blimey.

As I watched, the queue inched down and down and down until it was my turn. I bought our tickets, typed in all my details and pressed the purchase button. The screen said to wait for one minute while the payment processed.

I was so excited as I imagined telling the youngest the news.

Then … a message came up saying there had been an error and that it wasn’t my fault, it was theirs, but soz, I’d need to rejoin the queue and try to buy tickets all over again.

The queue by that point was at 200,000. FFS. And I was screwed.

I was soooooooooooooo cross. Effing Ticketmaster.

But then a message came through from the youngest saying she was at the front of the hotel-plus-ticket queue and had secured standing room spots plus a night’s accommodation for $1000. Should she buy them?

A weird thing happens when you are in a queue of 200,000 people and have to make split second decisions. You suddenly must have those tickets AT ANY COST.

So I said GO FOR IT!

And now the reality has sunk in that I need to transfer $1000 to my daughter for the tickets … and stand up for a whole concert.

Bloody hell.

Adding to my angst was a run in with Mildred.

When I was on the bus home from my night in the city yesterday morning, I got a text from the eldest saying something was beeping very loudly and incessantly in the hallway.

I presumed it was the smoke alarm.

It was not the smoke alarm.

After extensive investigation I discovered it was something called Mildred.

Mildred is an electronic automated shut off valve for mains water supply systems in the event of a leak. As her name would imply, she is very old fashioned and requires four new AAA batteries to stop beeping.

Who has batteries these days and what the hell is something that requires them doing in my hall cupboard?

I trudged down to Woolies and bought the batteries and finally stopped the infuriating beeping.

So, all up, it has been a pretty intense 24 hours and I don’t feel super keen to rejoin the human rat race this morning.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Instead, as DD suggested yesterday, I will get up and focus on cherishing the good stuff.

“All we can take from today is to value those we love.”

Song of the day: “While my guitar gently weeps”