My best friend of 50 years knew me better than anyone. But when she died, no one seemed to take my grief seriously
I don't remember a time in my life when Chrissy wasn't in it. We were born 11 days apart and were both one when our families moved on to the same street in Geelong, a port city an hour south-west of Melbourne. We had a very Australian childhood; summers spent in our bathers, running through sprinklers; swimming in back yard pools; eating sausages in bread on New Year's Eve, when we were allowed to stay up late while our parents drank cask riesling with the neighbours, and we'd lie on the cool evening grass listening to crickets.
During those blisteringly hot summer days of our childhood, we lived at the beach, where shark alarms were constant and the waves dangerous. Occasionally, Chrissy would paddle out on her inflatable red and blue raft to the big waves out the back where the serious surfers were. Sometimes, I'd panic when I'd lose sight of her, only to see her come rolling in on a massive wave, perched on top, laughing her head off. She was fearless.
But I did lose her, five decades later. When Chrissy died at 51, I discovered a new and terrifying grief: that for a best friend. It was shocking, painful and incredibly lonely. Friends know you differently from family, but where do you sit in the pecking order? Below immediate family, ahead of a cousin, behind a current workmate?
Our lives began together and the sheer amount of time spent with each other – the years of conversations and experiences, silly and serious – gave our friendship depth and meaning. Chrissy knew me in a way nobody else ever will. She saw me through experiences no one else ever knew about, not even my family. So why is it so hard to talk about the specific pain of losing a friend?
Though we'd spent most of our childhood and early 20s together, Chrissy and I diverged in our mid-20s when I moved cities and, eventually, countries, to America. But despite the distance, our friendship remained strong, rooted in a shared history. We were like branches on an old tree that had grown in and around each other.
'I've got a damned brain lesion,' Chrissy had messaged from Melbourne while I was on the runway at LAX in Los Angeles, about to fly home to New York after a raucous weekend celebrating a friend's birthday. 'It's happened so fast. I have to go straight into hospital to get it removed, so I don't know if it's straightforward and they just get it or if I need follow-up treatment,' she'd written.
'I just wanted to let you know the bad news rollercoaster is still taking rides,' she'd added, referring to my wife, Mika, who'd been successfully treated for breast cancer a few years before. 'But they said it's in a good spot and they can access it, so I'm feeling OK.'
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me as the plane began taxiing down the runway.
'Sorry this is a message,' she'd ended, betraying a deeper anxiety. 'I reckon I'd cry too much if I called you.'
Chrissy's initial surgery didn't go well; the surgeons couldn't get to all of the tumour and a leak on her brain left her in intensive care for weeks, with a drain in her skull. Friends sent voice messages and songs that reminded us of her. (Mine were Friday I'm in Love by the Cure, Modern Love by David Bowie and Eye of the Tiger by Survivor – she loved the Rocky movies.)
Chrissy was diagnosed with stage 4 glioblastoma, which has a survival time of 12-18 months. When she was discharged from hospital after five horrific brain surgeries, she was given a brief respite before going straight into radiation and chemotherapy. Talking was hard, so we would message and she'd put on a brave face and say she was 'doing as best as I can be'. She made jokes about her 'crazy hair', half-shaved because of the drain in her head. She refused to cut it purely to annoy the people who kept asking why she didn't. The tumour ('the fucking toomer,' she called it, using a Schwarzenegger-Terminator accent, which made us laugh) was aggressive, but she remained optimistic.
I flew to Australia to see her, catching a train from our home town to Melbourne where Chrissy lived with her British husband, Kev, and two teenage children. I looked out at the steel-grey skies and low winter sun reflecting off the paddocks, making them a deep golden as troops of kangaroos sat on their hind legs, affronted by the train speeding past. I held my overnight bag to my chest and thought about what I would say to her.
Kev met me on the platform while Chrissy waited in the car. When she saw me, she got out slowly, laughing, before the tears came and I held her close to my chest. She felt so fragile, I had to swallow a sob.
We went out for Vietnamese food and talked with Chrissy's kids about TikTok videos, the aerial silks classes her daughter was taking, and part-time jobs. I looked round the packed restaurant and wondered how people could sit there, eating, drinking and laughing, enjoying their lives, while my friend was dying.
Chrissy is that friend who is embedded in every important memory in your life: she was there through primary school, high school and university – where we did the same degree and lived in each other's pockets. After graduation, when I did what every other wide-eyed Australian has done for generations before me and moved to London on a working holiday (and, yes, I did land in Earl's Court), Chrissy and Kev called in to see me while they backpacked around Europe.
When I returned to Australia, Chrissy often took up residence on my old brown velvet couch, and when I moved to New York she made the trip across the Pacific a few times, most memorably for my wedding, where she commandeered the dancefloor until the early hours.
But the most vivid memories I have are of early childhood. The slumber parties where we'd stay up watching The Empire Strikes Back in my parents' wood-panelled, brown-carpeted rumpus room, when we would cocoon ourselves in piles of blankets and pillows, waking up to morning cartoons and my mum cooking us bacon on toast with Worcestershire sauce.
She was a natural at sport and every game we played felt like it had a grand slam title at stake. Her strength and agility, always so apparent, made it difficult to see her so depleted now. The endless cycles of radiation and chemotherapy she had undertaken in the hope they would extend her life were brutal. The steroids she was given to mitigate the side-effects of the 'chemo bombs' made her ravenous, but she found it hard to eat, and the keto diet the doctors put her on to slow the growth of the tumour made her excruciating headaches worse.
She apologised for 'being a burden'. 'I don't want to die,' she said. We'd had intense conversations before – in the early 90s, she was among the few people I had told I was gay – but this one threw me. 'I know,' I said, adding hopefully but pitifully that the treatments 'could still shrink the tumour' and give her more time.
We'd go for short walks on Williamstown Beach in Melbourne, where she had liked to swim and take her rescue dog, Polly, for a run. She took me to her favourite bakery – in a former textile factory – where I ordered the sausage roll and custard doughnut. She had the Reuben pastrami sandwich and key lime pie. 'I know you can probably get better ones in New York,' she'd said. 'But I love them.'
She tired quickly and needed to lie down. I walked her home the few blocks from where we had eaten lunch; the unsaid hanging in the air between us that she couldn't go anywhere alone because her balance was affected by the tumour and she could fall or, worse, have a seizure. She hated being dependent on anyone. 'This fucking toomer,' she said, trying to smile as we walked slowly along her street in the bright winter sun.
Sign up to Inside Saturday
The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.
after newsletter promotion
I never had to question the strength of our bond or what it meant to my life. But when Chrissy became ill, people seemed to either interrogate me about how deep our friendship really was or avoid the situation – I even felt a vibe from some of, 'Why are you making such a meal of this?'
Some friendships were damaged. When I told one friend of 20-plus years I was flying home to Australia to see Chrissy as she was dying, he said, 'Jesus, I'm so sorry,' before moving on to tell me about some dramas he was having at work. He never asked me about it again.
A colleague spoke about the death of a friend's father. 'He's had to fly home – it's your worst nightmare,' she said after I'd returned to New York from seeing Chrissy for the last time. When I got back to work, my boss never mentioned it and we just carried on as normal, as if my month off had been a jolly holiday.
Some people asked about Chrissy once, and you could almost hear the sigh of relief vibrating through subsequent conversations when they could go back to talking about holidays, parties, work. Some friends, at least, were honest. 'I'm sorry. I've wanted to message,' a good friend who'd known Chrissy in our early 20s texted. 'But I didn't know what to say.'
I rang a close friend of 15 years to let her know that there was a possibility I might have to fly back to Australia and not be in New York to help her through a medical procedure, suggesting she put a Plan B in place, in case I had to leave quickly. 'Of course you're backing out,' she said, clearly annoyed, which left me speechless.
'Why aren't you there already? She's still alive,' she said, which felt very much like an accusation. 'Why would you wait for the funeral?'
When I said goodbye to Chrissy in Melbourne (we'd cried and said we'd 'see each other soon'), I had known I likely wouldn't see her again, but I'd made peace with that decision. I also knew I would go back for her funeral – not just to celebrate her, but for myself as well, and to be among friends and family. But my friend's comments made me doubt myself. What is the appropriate course of action to take when your oldest friend is dying in another country? Is one trip enough? Should I have gone five times? Should I have moved back to Australia?
Even if I'd wanted to go and sit by her bedside for a month, there were barriers that stopped me from doing what I wanted to do because when you work on contract as a journalist, a dying friend doesn't merit the involvement of HR. There was also the crushing sense brought on by some of those around me that a dying friend didn't warrant the grief I felt.
'We have socially constructed templates for losing a parent, a child or a life partner, but the lack of social templates in the death of a friend plays a big role in isolating people in their grief,' says Rebecca Sokoll, a New York-based relationship therapist. 'If I tell someone my mother has died, they immediately reflect back their own understanding over a type of suffering that is established. The response to the loss of a friend is not established, and that requires people to listen and to understand, and few people are going to truly know they need to do that.' In hindsight, I think I craved some kind of acknowledgment over what I was losing; that I shouldn't need to explain or justify my grief around a 50-year friendship and how devastating that was.
Two days before Chrissy died, I spoke to her on FaceTime. By then, she was mostly asleep but, in a kind and moving gesture, Kev put headphones on her so I could speak to her in private. I told her I loved her; what she and our friendship had meant to me. She frowned slightly and moved her mouth as if to speak, before exhaling deeply and going further into sleep. The memories of our friendship had been ours and now they were mine. I promised her I would remember all the stories for her kids. Kev kissed her hands for me – hands I would know anywhere – and I said goodbye, almost a year to the day since she had been diagnosed.
Mika, a teacher, asked for bereavement leave to fly with me to Melbourne, which was denied because Chrissy did not qualify as a direct family member. The New York City Department of Education gives its employees four days off for deaths in the immediate family, plus an extra travel day if the funeral is outside New York. Mika, who had her own special relationship to Chrissy over the 15 years she'd known her, watched online as I gave a eulogy.
I still talk to Chrissy (God, she loved a chat!) but the loneliness I've felt since her death has been painful. Her absence has made me question other relationships in my life. Some I once considered strong have fallen by the wayside. Others have been reignited and some have flourished unexpectedly.
None of us will escape the devastation of losing a close friend. I can only say, cherish those relationships, nurture them and protect them. I thought Chrissy and I would know each other when we were 80, still talking about music and still eating strawberry doughnuts, but she wasn't afforded the privilege of growing old.
A couple of weeks after her funeral, I went for a swim at Ocean Grove, a rugged beach on the Victorian coastline near my parents' house, a haven for surfers, seals and, occasionally, great whites. It was an uncommonly hot November day but the ocean still had a chill, the waves were enormous and the current was strong.
I inched in deeper and deeper, sucking in air from the chill, hopping from one foot to the other as the cold of the ocean rode its way up my back. Beside me, a group of teenage girls had run full throttle into the water, screaming and laughing at the shock of the cold. Without fear, they had dived straight under the waves, emerging still laughing and clinging to each other. When did I get so timid? Once – like those girls – I would've gone straight under, brazen and unafraid.
On the horizon, a monster set of waves started to rise, rolling in so quickly that I had a second to decide – go over or go under. There was only one course of action. I breathed deeply and went down into the water as low as I could go, fighting against the washing machine-like cycle of the ocean, which thrashed me around for what felt like an eternity. I knew I couldn't resurface because there'd be another wave right behind it before the swell could reset and calm itself ahead of the next rising onslaught. I held on until my lungs felt as if they were about to burst when, finally, the endless churn started to subside, and I could come up for air.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Geographic narcissism': the battle to fund aged care providers in rural Australia
In the final stages of Angiolina Moro's dementia journey, she would revert to speaking Italian. 'She was in her late 20s when she arrived in Australia,' her son, Joe Moro, says. 'So as her dementia creeped in, she lost the capacity to speak in English.' Angiolina died in February. She spent the final five years of her life at an aged care facility in Mount Kooyong, 50km north of Mareeba, the far north Queensland town where she had lived most of her life. Moro says his mother would have preferred to stay in Mareeba, where language wasn't as much of a barrier. Ten per cent of Mareeba's population is Italian. 'I know the staff [at Mount Kooyong] spent a lot of effort trying to communicate,' he says. 'I think they did a fantastic job. 'A lot of older people in the [region] are the first lot of immigrants who came back in the 50s and worked hard and are now deteriorating and ending up in homes. So language is a big barrier up here for getting good outcomes in care.' Sign up to receive Guardian Australia's fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter Moro says because of the relative isolation of the region there are limited options for aged care. Some travel to Cairns, about 60km from Mareeba, to fit in with their adult children's work schedules. But, Moro says, most of their elderly parents would prefer to stay in smaller communities. Ross Cardillo sold his business several years ago to help around the family lychee and longan farm at Mareeba. He and his sister are supporting their mother, 77, who is providing in-home care for their father, 83. 'There's just not sufficient care in Mareeba,' Cardillo says. '[Dad] wants to stay home, which is fair enough. If he goes to an aged care facility, he will die. And my mother won't let him die.' It is a common story in rural Australia. In-home aged care services are limited the further you travel from capital cities and regional centres. Cardillo has many friends who travel an hour to access aged care homes and the distances increase as you move further inland. Cardillo is the chairman of Mareeba and Communities Family Healthcare, a social, not-for-profit enterprise founded five years ago to provide improved medical services in the town. 'We are trying to cater for our ageing population with little or no support from anyone else,' he says. 'As a community, we see it as valuable and important and we're pursuing that. 'It's about opening up funding to more providers that are available up here.' In May, the enterprise set up an outreach clinic in Mutchilba, 35km south-west of Mareeba, to service the 600 locals. 'Most of them are elderly, so we didn't want them to travel as far,' Cardillo says. Moro, who is also the Mareeba Chamber of Commerce president, says Mareeba and Communities Family Healthcare was set up to focus on general medical services but could expand to aged care if there was adequate 'dollars, cents and expertise'. 'We have an overall shortage here,' he says. 'There are numerous councils trying to get investment and there's talk of something going to happen – at the end of the day it's an investment issue.' A 2023 report by the National Rural Health Alliance estimated that rural Australians missed out on $850 worth of healthcare services each year due to a lack of access to or availability of services in their local area – equating to a total annual rural health underspend of $6.5bn. The Alliance chief executive, Susi Tegen, says many communities have resorted to raising funds on their own. She described the failure of governments to adequately fund aged care in the regions as 'geographic narcissism'. 'Some communities are coming up with models that are much better and allow for support from the local community,' Tegen says. 'However, they are often not funded. They rely on volunteers and they are often not considered by government funding to be good enough. And yet, we seem to see a population that is being told by the lack of funding that they're not as important as urban people.' In New South Wales, the Snowy Mountains community of Bombala shot a nude calendar to raise funds to keep the Currawarna assisted living facility open after it closed due to staff shortages in 2022. Tegen says rural communities need a commitment from state and federal governments to ensure they receive equitable funding to keep pace with the ageing population. The number of Australians aged over 65 years is projected to almost double from 3.8m in 2017 to 6.4m in 2042, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Tegen says it is difficult to attract healthcare workers to move to regional areas because they 'feel they're not being supported'. 'They're having to beg and scrape, and they're having to jump through hoops to get the money that everyone else seems to be getting in the city,' she says. The federal government in March said it would invest $600m in in-home care in regional Australia and for people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences. There is also almost $1bn in the federal budget for the Aged Care Capital Assistance Program, which provides grants to build, extend or upgrade aged care services or to build staff accommodation where older Australians have limited or no access. But Cardillo says it seems as though that money never filters down to his community, and the people at the top do not understand the reality of those in regional communities. He says the community will keep doing what they need to do to cater for their ageing population. 'They get things done themselves and they do it themselves,' he says. Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
When they chose to die together, my grandparents wrote the final chapter of a love story spanning 70 years
In their final moments, Ron and Irene lay together in a single bed, soft smiles on their faces. They wore special shirts picked out for the occasion; his a cranky cockatoo print, and hers the same white and floral print blouse she wore to their 70th wedding anniversary a few months previously. The only sign of what was to come were the twin cannulas, one in each of their intertwined hands, with long thin tubes winding back behind the beds and out of sight. It had felt like an eternity to get here – the reality closer to three weeks – with countless possible pitfalls. But it was about to happen. Ronald and Irene were about to get their final wish; to die peacefully together. My grandparents met in South Hurstville in the 1950s. Irene defied her father's wishes and married at just 19. As the youngest of seven, she was expected to remain in the family home and care for her sickly mother. Ron, whose parents and older siblings migrated from London in the early 1930s, met her through a friend, and was smitten from first sight. The courtship was fast, but the love endured. They had four children in Sydney before moving the family unit to Port Macquarie in the 1960s. My mum speaks so warmly about her childhood, growing up on the banks of the Hastings River, days of sandy feet and salty hair. Streets where they knew the names of every neighbour, and afternoons spent prying oysters off river rocks to slurp down. In the decades between my mother's childhood and my own, my grandparents travelled Australia in a caravan, with long stints in Perth, Katherine and wherever else took their fancy. In the 1990s, they bought a small hobby farm in Unumgar, inland dairy country on the Queensland-New South Wales border. By this point, they had five grandchildren and set about turning the property into a kids' paradise. Ultimately they moved back to Port Macquarie, to spend their twilight years with the wider family. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads I can't remember the first time my grandparents told me that they wanted to end their lives together. I felt like I'd always known, and to my surprise so did many others. In the lead up to them accessing voluntary assisted dying, we learned that they'd said it early and often to many people. Fiercely proud, Irene had nursed all her siblings through their final stages, seeing first-hand how painful the end of our lives can be. It was at least 10 years ago that she told me, vehemently, that when it was her time, she wanted to go her own way. Fate took away her sight first, with glaucoma making her almost totally blind, and then saddled her with a hideously cruel degenerative spinal condition. She'd lose dexterity and feeling in her hands and feet first, as her nerves were slowly crushed by the crumbling spinal discs, eventually leading to paralysis. She was tougher than an old boot, and barely let any of us see her pain – wrestling with my toddler even at the age of 90. In April, when the nerve damage turned into dysphagia and she could no longer eat, she decided it was time. 'I'm done,' she said. 'I've done everything I wanted to. I am ready to go.' NSW was the last state to legalise voluntary assisted dying, coming into effect in 2023. Each state has slightly different requirements, and it remains illegal in both the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory. Eligibility is strict; in NSW, a person must make three requests (two verbal, one written), be assessed by two separate physicians and a board, and, crucially, suffer from a terminal illness that is expected to cause death within six months. In the first seven months of legalised VAD in NSW, 1,141 people initiated a first request to access VAD and 398 patients died via the service. Irene's first assessment was tense. It was unclear whether the spinal condition would qualify as a terminal illness. Ron, overcome by the situation and his own myriad health problems, had a severe panic attack. These attacks were frequent, incapacitating him mentally and physically. One of the medical staff commented that he'd likely qualify easier than my Nan – and the room stood still. It felt like an obvious choice. A period of wonderment – would they really get their wish? Ron was crystal clear and adamant. He did not want to live without his love. They were ready to write the final chapter of a love story spanning seven decades. The next few weeks were incredibly stressful. They each had three stages to pass, in quick succession, with their primary physician walking a thin line in balancing medications to keep them comfortable without ever impairing their ability to make a clear choice. Any perceived impairment or loss of mental ability could disqualify them. For people in their 90s, that could be triggered by something as simple as a fever. My grandparents took it in their stride, instituting a daily happy hour – longtime friends and family could drop by from 4pm, for a last glass of 'bubbles'. Miraculously, Irene's dysphagia seemed to not include Australian sparkling wine. It was like a farewell tour, as they laughed and cried, treating nearly every visitor to their own rendition of Willie Nelson's On the Road Again, which they'd sing together with a smile, anticipating their final adventure together. My aunt made a last-minute, multi-leg journey from Western Australia to hold her parents' hands one last time. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion Some people struggled. It had only been a few months earler that we'd celebrated their 70th anniversary in the rec room, with balloons and a giant slab cake. A volunteer played the guitar, and my grandfather crooned Too Young by Nat King Cole over the microphone. Despite this, they were unwavering and emphatic in their decision. They had a wonderful life, they had done everything they had ever wanted, and it was time to go. Once the NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Board passed that final approval, the date was set. Arrangements were made. Final meals were requested; honey king prawns for him, spring rolls for her, from one of Port Macquarie's many Chinese-Australian restaurants. I have no idea how my mother, their primary carer and an absolute saint, managed the process of orchestrating not only the death of both her parents, but also wrangling all five of us grandkids together from across Australia. Even with the approvals in place, there were still hurdles to jump. There were last-minute psychological evaluations. Anecdotally, we'd been told only half of VAD cases actually go through with it – data from the states puts the number closer to 30-35%. What if one of them changed their mind at the last minute? The night before the final day, we all gathered in my parent's Port Macquarie house, sitting around the table with our Nan and Pop for one last meal. A blur of tears and laughter. Holding my Nan's soft wrinkled hand, and her convincing me that this is what they wanted. I felt like a little girl, crying and being comforted by my grandmother one last time. In a way, I felt as though I had pre-grieved, particularly when I took my husband and two boys to say farewell two weeks earlier. My three-year-old climbed up on my Pop's lap to share his plastic insect collection, and they talked at length about grasshoppers versus praying mantises. My Nan toggled her head around until she found the one pinpoint in her vision that still worked, fixed it on my husband, and told him to look after me. I could tell that day that they were so sure, so strong in their decision. They would never go back, not knowing it was what the other one wanted. They told me my boys were special, and destined for great things, and in that moment I broke. Maybe that's why on the day I could be strong. The 'event', as we called it, was scheduled for 10.30, and we started assembling in their room from 9.30am. My dad opened bottles of champagne, and we all had our final bubbles together. The kitchen staff of their assisted living facility wheeled in a trolley laden with finger sandwiches, caramel slices and tea and coffee provision. Willie Nelson played. It felt like a party. It was a party. Both my grandparents chose to die via medical assistance, rather than self-administer, requiring four medical personnel in the room. The two doctors shepherded us through the process with an endless amount of patience, empathy and care. They gently told us it was time, and Irene laid down next to Ron on the bed. The cannulas went in, the cords winding back and away, so the doctors could step back and allow us to be by their sides. Ron and Irene held hands. The music changed to a soft version of You Are My Sunshine. I sat next to my Pop and held his other hand, while my Mum, brother and cousins surrounded my Nan on the other side. I whispered the first line of a favourite childhood story, and he smiled, picking up and taking over, telling it to me one last time. My Nan made a highly inappropriate joke – terrifying us that it would be her last words – before chuckling, and saying: 'Here I go – love you all.' And then it happened. Calmly, quickly, with dignity. In a room full of love, with smiles on their faces and without any pain. We'd been told that hearing was the last sense to go, so we repeated I love you, I love you, I love you, until we were sure that they'd finally slipped away.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
The moment I knew: she was giving birth to another man's child – I was in absolute awe
In 2018 I had just started lecturing in nursing at a university in South Australia. It was the start of the academic year and I was new to town, so a colleague and I decided to check out the open-day stalls. I'd been vegan for a few years and was hoping to meet some like-minded folk. A person in a Sea Shepherd hoodie pointed me in the right direction and I was immediately struck by this woman sitting in the middle of the stall. It's a moment captured in resin in my mind – there was a crowd of people and cupcakes on the table. I would say I was 13 paces away from Laura when I first clapped eyes on her. She was just breathtaking; smiling, happily chatting to people. She seemed to have this immense gravity to her and I could feel myself getting pulled into her orbit. I chatted to her and a few others and left the encounter absolutely stunned. No work got done for the rest of the afternoon. I didn't know what to make of it. It was a struggle to even accept she existed. I was in shock but I did my best to brush it aside. I was married at the time, but things weren't going well. I definitely wasn't looking for love, but I joined the Vegan and Vegetarian Club and we saw each other in passing over the next few months. During that time I discovered Laura was in a relationship too. Six months later I was going through a divorce and I learned Laura had also separated from her partner. But her situation was a lot more complicated; not only was she still living with her ex to care for their three-year-old, she was also five months pregnant. It sounds absurd to say, but these details felt peripheral to me. Such was the chemistry between us that we managed to turn the famously unsexy annual general meeting of the Vegan and Vegetarian Club into our first romantic encounter. We kissed by the campus lake and I was a goner. We agreed that whatever we were getting into was temporary. With a preschooler and baby on the way, and life as a single parent to get used to, a new partner was a convolution she didn't feel she needed. I knew I very much fell into the nice-to-have, not need-to-have category. I thought I was OK with that. I even tried to date other people. But being with Laura was like having the colours of the world turned up to 11. Every other encounter paled in comparison; I only had eyes for her. As her pregnancy progressed, I found myself helping her more and more. Each day we felt ourselves slipping into a relationship and each day she reminded me that we weren't serious. When her waters broke six weeks early, I was the one who took her to the hospital and helped advocate for her. The midwives weren't taking the situation seriously and from a professional perspective I knew they were dropping the ball. Eventually they conceded Laura was likely going to experience a preterm birth. The following days were intense, but I never left her side. In a gesture of what I'd like to think of as 'radical acceptance' – and much to Laura's chagrin – I installed a baby capsule in my car. Despite her protestations, I knew deep down I'd be the one to drive her and the baby home from hospital when the time came. Not long after that, she went into labour. If I thought I found Laura impressive before, watching her give birth sent my opinion of her stratospheric. By the time the staff agreed to check how she was progressing, she was 10cm dilated and ready to push. By that point her confidence with the staff was at such a low ebb she rejected their offer of a wheelchair and instead elected to walk herself up a flight of stairs to get to the birthing suite. I was in absolute awe. Our daughter was born shortly after. Once the pressures of having a baby in the neonatal intensive care unit had passed, I asked Laura when she wanted me out of the way. 'If I wanted you gone, you wouldn't be here,' she told me. 'I don't want you to go.' She was showing such vulnerability, and it wasn't easy for her. But in that moment I could see her own radical acceptance had hit home. I knew all too well I was madly in love; it turned out I wasn't the only one. Seven years later our blended family has grown to include two more children. In 2023 I proposed to Laura on national television. She said yes. Do you have a romantic realisation you'd like to share? From quiet domestic scenes to dramatic revelations, Guardian Australia wants to hear about the moment you knew you were in love. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian. Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
