Shock

My daughters have a couple of close friends whose mum, Bin, was my childhood friend. Bin’s dad was my dad’s childhood friend. Apparently her dad, my dad and my uncle (dad’s twin) were the neighbourhood terrors – the neighbours even had a name for the trio! My uncle moved away but for my father and her father that friendship continued.

Many of my childhood memories involve family meals and late night card games with my family and Bin’s where eventually our dad’s would get too drunk to see their cards properly and we’d have to hold them for them. Or camping with them during school holidays when our dad’s would take us out for a week at a time out the back of the damn where there were no toilets or showers and we’d cook on the open fire, fish till the worms ran out, use our airbeds to swim with in the dam,  wear the same clothes every day, sleep in our sleeping bags next to the fire at night and come home when the beer (for the adults) ran out, so sunburned that we’d peel for a week.

As a young teen, theirs was the place that I would most often end up on weekends and during holidays. Bin’s mum would sit up with us all till late at night watching movies or playing cards or trivial pursuit with us. She always seemed to have a game of solitaire on the go and I could never figure out how she always managed to just twist up her hair, shove a pen in it and have it stay up! Bin’s bro was my first boyfriend (awwww) and my …. umm third and possibly fourth boyfriend (who can remember exactly lol) Ours was an on again, off again relationship I’m sure brought about more by the close proximity, but boy did I think he was cute the time lol

I can’t write about all the stuff Bin and I got up to – I don’t want to give my daughters idea’s – but lets just say that we had many ‘adventures’ all over town that may have at times landed us in much shit.  Looking back I’m surprised we didn’t end up in some serious trouble.

Things drifted a bit as they do when young teens finish school and go off to find their way, but after I left ‘the freak’ and came home, Bin was there – a source of support and a lifeline when adjusting to access weekends on my own and at a loose end. We fell into similar patterns to our parents at the same life stage – helping each other with kids, weekend get togethers, late night cards. She is CJ’s godmother, PSLS and I are godparent’s to one of her daughters, she was one of my bridesmaids. Lot’s of shared family times.

As our kids grew and our lives changed we drifted again, but still bumped into each other and time just doesn’t matter with old friends. It doesn’t matter whether it was last week or last month or last year when you last saw each other, there is still that connection and understanding of each other.

Last year saw the circle come around again and we have drifted back in. Now our daughter’s are good mates and a source of support for each other as they face their own challenges as teens, we are sharing notes and strategizing together to thwart them and it comes as no surprise to me to walk in their front door and find Bin playing cards with all the kids like her mum did with us.

Bin’s mum who was a very petite 5 ft nothing, was the kind of lady who could put the fear of god into a group of drunken 15 year old boofheads as they towered over her and who referred to herself  as a nasty piece of work, but to me, she was always great (even when she was tearing strips off us for filching her riesling and sneaking out the window in the dead of night to go hang with the boys but I digress, ahem) because she interacted with us in a way no other adult in my life did at that time. She was intelligent and witty with a dry sense of humour and had no time for foolishness but she spent time with us, she talked with us, she gave lots of advice and bossed us around too, didn’t talk to us like we were just dumb kids and always remembered that even as young adults that we were actually still kids and bound to stuff up.

And yesterday she died. Unexpectedly. Suddenly and much too young. She’d had  major surgery last week which went really well. Then she caught the flu. It was too much for her body that was weak from the surgery.

Bin said to me last night that it wasn’t meant to happen like this – she was meant to nurse her mum at home when she was in her 80’s the way her mum had done for her nan, not be burying her in her 50’s and not even getting to say goodbye face to face……………..

And she’s right. It’s not right and it’s not fair.

She’ll be greatly missed.