"SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU SAD"

You didn't like to see people close to you being upset.
I remember you in relationships in your early teens where things just weren't working out. You would agonize over what to do without hurting the other person involved. Your head and your heart always seemed to be at loggerheads.
It would make you sad to see how upset your many friends and family members have been this past twelve months. I know that there is no way you would have left us in the way you did if your mind had been in the right place on that fateful day because you would not have wanted any of us to be feeling the hurt and the aching sadness that has enveloped us all. You cared too much for those around you to have wanted us to be sad.
Wherever you are now, don't be sad! We are all ok! Of course, there is a sadness that comes with missing you, but our lives are good in so many other ways.
Hold on to the happy times xxx

"CIRCLE"

Wow! What an amazing 'circle' of friends you have!
We joined then in celebrating Frank's 21st last night and every single one of them welcomed us and spent time chatting to us about the fun times they had had with you.
It could quite well have been really upsetting for us to attend a party meant for you to attend. Instead we came away reassured that we had made the right decision to be there in your place.
Frank and Vicky welcomed us with hugs and kisses.
Aaron, Walshy, Brad, Fozzie, Andy, Johnno, Bill and Rhys made time to chat with us.
We met Karla who we had heard a lot about, especially in your early years at Marist Sion.
Michelle and Blair were introduced to us.
Cameron, Nathan and Hughsey said hello.
We felt like we were a little part of your 'circle'.
Thanks to all your amazing mates!! xx

"1PM"

It's 1pm. Your lunch hour has just ended. You would be just getting in your car to head back to work. It didn't matter that your break ended at 1pm and that it would take 3 or 4 minutes to get back to work...your bosses were so good to you that being 3 or 4 minutes late was unimportant.
But, on the day you died, your lunch hour still ended at 1pm.
Once again you got into your car but, instead of heading back to work, you headed home.
A momentary decision that changed our lives and the lives of all who knew you...forever!

"SOMEWHERE YOU WENT"

Where did you go? And, why did you go away without telling us?
All we know is that you are no longer here with us. I hope that you have gone to a better place. A place where money doesn't matter and all is happy and content.
A place of contentment for you would have to have friends to have a good time with, and people everywhere who love you...just like here! It would have to have places to drive to and scenery to admire. Of course, it would have to have a comfortable bed and sweet foods.
I hope that describes the place you have gone to because that's the sort of place you liked when you were here with us.
The funny part is, these places CAN be found where money doesn't matter! You silly bugger!

"BLACK & WHITE"

Well your shoes were always either black or white. Mostly they were of the 'greek granny' style and made of either black or white canvas or, occasionally black and white canvas.
You were the T-shirt king! You loved t-shirts and would always ask for t-shirts for birthdays and Christmas or you would buy your own any time you had spare cash. BUT, for some reason you would nearly always buy white t-shirts or the occasional black t-shirt. You had gorgeous tanned skin which would look great in any colour but, no...white it was!!

"LOOKING DOWN"

There is a Heaven. I know it!
I know it because sometimes I can 'feel' you looking down on us.
You're happy all the time now, instead of just 'most of the time'.
A little part of me feels reassured that you are content and without worry. But, a bigger part of me just feels an emptiness and a loss beyond belief.
Of course, when you were here with us you were always 'looking down' on most people because of your height.
Now, you 'look down' on all who knew you and watch as our lives have to continue without you. I think that's the part that hurts the most in all this...it feels like the world should have stopped when you did, but it didn't!
You watch as we work and play and laugh and cry and a part of you must be missing all those good times as much as we are missing you! xxx

"SOMETHING YOU'RE GRATEFUL FOR"

You had many things to be grateful for.

• You have a family who will love you 'til the end of time.
• You had a very good relationship with both your Dad and I. You could enjoy a good laugh with us and could talk to us about anything and everything. You loved to sit and jam with your Dad and the guitars and shared a sense-of-humour with similarities to mine (although mine is not as warped as yours was!)
• You had the best mates in the world. I might not have always appreciated them but they have shown their true natures with their care of each other and their visits with us in the months since you've been gone. 
• You had a girlfriend who adored you and a great relationship with both her and her family.
• You were very good-looking (I may be a bit biased here) but you were definitely easy on the eye!
• You were very good at any sport you tried.
• You were very clever.
• You had a great job.
• You had a life full of family Christmases, birthday get-togethers, road trips and an extended family full of fun.
• You had many, many cousins.
• You always lived in comfortable surroundings.
• You drove a good car.               

Your life was great!!!

"VEGETABLE"

I think your favourite vegetable was probably potatoes because you loved them roasted, mashed, cooked on the BBQ or in your favourite "Wattle Stump".
Your least favourite was zucchini and I think they are the only food you didn't eat.
You loved your vegies and would often ask for 'a vegie hit'.
Even as a little baby you loved to eat mashed vegies. I rarely resorted to tinned food but, instead, would cook and mash different vegetables for you. You loved it!!

"THE LAST THING YOU BOUGHT"

I think the last thing you bought was what tipped you over the edge.
As far as we know, the last thing you bought was 'money' to put through the poker machines. You had just been paid that morning and, after paying money off your car loan,  headed straight for the pokies venue during your lunch hour. You then proceeded to spend all but $25.00 of your pay on attempting to gain more money. You already knew this very rarely worked as you had expressed your concern about your gambling habits several times in the previous weeks and as recently as the night before you died.
You owed a measly $160.00 to other people, myself and a mate, and I know that this would have been preying on your mind, knowing that the money you were putting through the machines was not all yours.
You also knew both your mate and I well enough to know that we would easily forgive you if you were unable to pay us back that week! Our bonds of family and friendship were tighter than that!
I can only imagine the sense of despair you must have felt as you drove that final kilometre home to end your life.
It is my strong belief, and my profound understanding of the sort of person you were, that leads to the following conclusion:
You had already expressed a concern for your inability to deal with your gambling. Also, you were suffering from depression and taking medication to help deal with this. You had an IQ of over 150 and had never unwillingly 'failed' at anything in your life.
All three of these combined to make one dreadful cocktail of events in your mind on that particular day. You would have seen yourself as a failure after spending all your pay yet again! Your depression and inability to fail lead to a lack of resilience which meant you couldn't cope.
You had, however, just started opening up about your gambling and I firmly believe that, had you managed to get through that day, you may still be here with us as we could have dealt with it together.
But, it is not to be!
You had a wonderful life, Jake! Great mates, a great relationship with your family and your girlfriend and an absolutely amazing personality which made you very popular.
We miss you! xxx

"BOTTLE"

Well, I was never a very good cow so you had to be 'topped-up' with a bottle almost every night as a baby. Then, when you were about four months old, I gave up and you were completely bottle-fed.
 It didn't seem to hurt you...you continued to grow into a healthy, happy toddler.
Your love of the bottle returned years later, but mostly on Friday and Saturday nights!!
And, it didn't involve milk!!

"SOMETHING YOU DREW"

Your sense of humour is typified in these drawings. Your design brief was to design some new packaging to advertise a product.
Very funny!! I got a good laugh out of revisiting these tonight as they really do portray the funny side of 'you'! xxx

"ORANGE"

Orange is the colour of sunsets. It's the colour of quarter time and half time in a game of netball. It's the colour of the sun in your first kinder painting.
And, it's the colour of your skin as a newborn baby.

Yes, you went quite orange for a few days there, and you had to spend several hours a day in a special humidicrib with ultraviolet lights. At least, I presume that's what sort of lights they are!
You see you became quite jaundiced just after birth and had to have phototherapy to help break down the build-up of bilirubin in your system (your godmother Helene can correct me if my terminology is wrong here). This just meant putting you in a crib with the 'bili' lights trained on you. You were lucky in that a few hours of light treatment over a couple of days proved to be enough to reduce these levels but you still stayed a lovely 'orange' colour for a few weeks.
You always tanned so easily! I wonder if this jaundice gave you a heads-up in that department?

"HAIR"

A perfect topic and I don't know what to say!
Your hair was your trademark! It was literally filled with product! I don't think you washed it much...pretty gross!! But, the theory was that washing it made it not stand up so much! In the morning you would muss it vigorously with your hands and that was it for the day!
In your pre-teen years your hair was always short, blonde and spiky! From about the age of ten you would use gel in your hair to make it stand up and then you just went from there! Your hair got longer, the product use got greater and the shampoo use decreased.
You were buried with a jar of your favourite hair product which I think was called something like "Dominant" green. That was not even our idea! Mark, the funeral director, was just flabbergasted by the amount of product in your hair and by how much more was added to it to make it look 'just right'. He asked us for some to put in your hair and then said that he thought it should be placed beside you as it was such an important part of 'you'.

We agreed! xxx

"SOMETHING YOU DON"T LIKE"

Well, where do I start?
For someone who was so easy-going you had very definite ideas of what you liked and what you didn't like!
As I've said before, you didn't suffer fools at all and would totally ignore them and their ideas. This included 'know-alls' and people with no regard for the feelings of others.
You couldn't stand giggly, immature females who had nothing sensible to say!
You didn't really like spaghetti bolognese but would eat it just because the alternative was 'get your own'.
When you were at kindergarten you very rarely did any paintings because you didn't like getting paint on your hands.
You didn't like my little, old, blue Nissan. You said it sounded like a sewing machine...not sure how you knew what that would sound like as I rarely used one!!
You didn't like secondary school and certain subjects in particular. These were usually subjects in which you could see no purpose as far as achieving your career goals, as you were the sort of student who had to see a personal advantage in everything you did. Therefore, I pitied your RE teachers immensely!
As a teenager, you didn't like being told what to do. We had to pick our moments! We found it best to concoct a reason to go for a drive somewhere as you were more responsive when sitting beside us in a 'trapped' environment.
You obviously didn't like the fact that your gambling problems were beyond your control.
If only you were the sort of person who liked to ask for help when it mattered most! xx

"FLOWER"

Seems a bit incongruous to be talking about flowers in regards to someone of your age and gender but I now know that relevance can be found in any topic!
It's even more incongruous to think that, for your 20th birthday and for the Christmas just gone, all we could give you were flowers! Blue flowers!
It's hard to find blue flowers but the florist always has those blue-dyed lilies and we actually managed to produce some very lovely blue hydrangea in our garden which became our gift to you.
Your coffin was beautifully adorned with flowers, many of which were blue! A sad but lovely farewell to my gorgeous boy!

"SUNSET"

I remember when you were about 13 or 14 and you went through a phase of coming home from school so tired that you would be in bed by 'sunset'. And this was winter!
I took you to the doctor who ran tests to rule out leukemia but finally diagnosed very low iron levels. You had grown an unbelievable 10cm in just one month!! Your iron levels were not keeping up with your body growth.
After a course of iron and some multi-vitamins you were back on track but you continued to grow steadily until you reached your final 6'4".

"HOW YOU FEEL TODAY"

I guess that's something I will never know!
However, I can discuss my hopes and dreams for your current feelings in the supposition that there is an afterlife!
I think the idea of Heaven was presented to man to help them have these hopes.
The ancient Greeks had it right really....their story of Pandora's box tells how Pandora opens the box and releases all the evils and illnesses upon the world but is able to shut the lid quickly, before Hope escapes. This Hope is needed in order that we always have something to look forward to.
The idea of an afterlife is a type of Hope, in that we can look forward to seeing you again and we can rest easy in our belief that you are in a happy place.
I believe that you are feeling much more content and untroubled by the inner turmoils that festered within your beautiful soul. Knowing you so well, I also think that you would be feeling a great deal of regret. You would hate to be looking down on the hurting that we are all doing down here. But, although we miss you intensely, we are all ok and slowly getting stronger.
Our lives will never be the same but we can take solace in the belief that 'today you feel happy'!! xx

"SOMETHING YOU FOUND"

In the material world, you once found a very pretty gold bracelet on the golf course. The people running the pro shop at the golf course then held on to it for 6 months but had no-one asking about a missing bracelet so they gave it you.
You then presented it to me.
The only thing wrong with it was that the safety chain was broken so I took it to the jewellers to have it mended only to find out that it's actually worth quite a bit of money. However, it now has far greater sentimental value to me simply because it came from you. 
I really do believe that you may also have found love in the 12 months or so before you died. We will never know if that love would have lasted long enough to result in marriage and a family but everyone deserves to know the kind of love that makes you feel warm and satisfied and happy. Your life may have been short but it was worthwhile in that you got to experience that kind of emotion before you left this world. I'm glad!
You found your niche in the job you were doing, too. You always stressed over the fact that you didn't know what to do as far as careers went but, once you got the job at The Gazette, you realised that a job which entailed design work, computers and easy-going bosses was just what you were looking for.

I hope that you have now found eternal happiness, Jake. You deserve it! xxx

"STAIRS"

You were always very easy to please!
When you were younger, we would take you to the city for football games, shopping trips, Moomba, etc. but your favourite thing to do was to ride the very long escalators at Parliament Station... or was it Museum Station?
Of course, as you grew older, you would never just walk up the stairs. Those very long legs enabled you to take the stairs three or four at a time.
Now I'm sure you are on a "Stairway to Heaven".

"WHERE YOU ATE BREAKFAST"

This time 11 months ago you were eating breakfast in my armchair in the lounge room. As I've mentioned in a previous blog, you left the evidence for me to find when I finally sank tearfully into it later that day.
You rarely ate breakfast at the table as breakfast was at different times for each of us depending on our work hours. You would sit, either in my chair or in your own little 'Sheldon' end of the couch, with your long legs stretched out on the footstool or the footrest. You were the epitome of comfort as you lolled back leisurely to enjoy whatever 'nourishment' you had chosen to start your day.
I just wish you had chosen to finish the day!!xxx

"COLD"

You hated the cold!
Even as a youngster when we took you all rugged up to play in the snow you would just cry and grizzle the whole time we were there. Very non-characteristic!
In your teenage years you needed jackets with the 'sheepskin'-type lining just to give you a bit more warmth. Maybe it was because you were so skinny!
When you were very little you were quite prone to colds and developed bronchitis several times before we put the central heating in when you were about 3 or 4. That seemed to put an end to the bronchitis which was good because I'm the biggest sook when it comes to seeing sick kids, especially my own!
xxx

"YOUNGER YOU"

The 'younger you' was absolutely adorable!
You wore a perpetual smile and always had everybody charmed!
You didn't sleep through the night until you were two and a half (which didn't really charm me so the last statement wasn't always true at night time!). I had to go back to work when you were only six months old so I often had 'zombie' eyes from lack of sleep. Your Dad stayed at home and did child care until you started school but he didn't hear you at night because he is deaf in one ear and sleeps on his good ear!! Handy!
You didn't often wake up crying. You would wake to play and chat (at the top of your voice) and your sister was such a light sleeper that I would have to move you to the lounge room. I would often doze on the couch and just let you play until you were tired enough to go back to bed. We gave up trying to get you to have a daytime sleep when you were only 14 months old...you just didn't seem to need sleep!!
We put you into a bed at about the same time as you would climb anything and everything and the bed was closer to the floor.
Then, when you were finally getting the sleep pattern in a better routine, the nightmares started. You would wake up screaming in absolute terror and we would all come rushing in to find you crying and upset. Once, when we asked you what had happened, you replied,
       "Humphrey said Bum!"
Humphrey Bear was one of the many toys that had to go to bed with you and who was often on TV during the day (mind you, he was mute!!).
Your nightmares continued until you were in Grade 1 and your Grade 5 buddy, Damien, told you not to worry because your nightmares would stop on the day you turned 7.... and they did!! Why didn't we think of that?
You loved watching TV and would often tell us that when you grew up you wanted to be 'Thomas the Tank Engine' or 'Madeline'.
You were very easy-going as a youngster and just got along with everybody. You were always popular and had many friends but even from a young age you would avoid conflict of any sort. One of your teachers, who has three sons younger than you, once asked me what the secret to producing a son with such a lovely temperament was because she wanted her three sons to turn out just like you!! One of the best compliments I have ever received!! xxx

"INSIDE YOUR WALLET"

I won't be able to write much for this one because there was never much in your wallet.
You had a drivers' licence, a bank card, your RACV card and an RMIT student card, but rarely any money.
I suppose that in itself tells a story, doesn't it?
I still have your latest wallet and it also contains that lovely smell of leather and a thousand memories of a life that was short but well-spent!

I do feel a bit short-changed though!

"SHADOW"

As Dad's little shadow, you used to follow him around asking a million questions and wanting to try whatever it was that Dad was doing. He would let you push the lawn mower or hold the fishing rod or give you some little timber offcuts of your own to hammer nails into.
Whenever your male cousins came to visit (they were few and far between) you would 'shadow' the older boys and definitely shared a mutual sense-of-humour with Tim and Rhys and Michael and Simon.
As you got older your shadow got taller and narrower. You went from being a solid, little toddler to being tall, lean and lanky.
Now that you are no longer here you leave a shadow in our hearts!
xxx

"LUNCH"

Your lunches were amazing!!!
You would usually come home for lunch on work days and make yourself an omelette... with the lot!! They would include eggs, cheese, capsicum, mushrooms, tomatoes and anything else that was in the fridge. They were the fattest-looking omelettes I'd ever seen.
And yummy!!!
xxx

"TINY"

You took your first 'tiny' steps when you were just 11 months old!
So, after you had got the hang of the walking thing I bought you some 'tiny' red and blue sneakers which were just right for those tentative wobbles.

And that's when you stopped walking and went back to crawling again!

I just thought you were being lazy as, occasionally, you would stand up and attempt a few more steps.
Then, one day, I took you and Sian to visit my Nan who would have been about 80 at the time. Nan always seemed to favour boys more than girls and called for you to sit on her knee for a cuddle. But, as you climbed up into her lap your little shoe fell off.  Nan reached down to pick it up and let out an exclamation of pain as she stabbed her finger with a 'tiny' staple which was protruding on the inside of your shoe!
No wonder you had given up the walking caper!
Mother-of-the-year? Me!!

"SOMEONE WHO MAKES YOU HAPPY"

These days I'd like to think that you are just happy watching over us all and that you are happy with your brothers and all those others who have gone before us! I hope so xxx
When you were here with us, you were made happy by almost everyone around you because you were the sort of person who didn't suffer fools. So, only those who made you happy were involved in your life!
I know for a fact that Amber made you very, very happy and since you've been gone we have had the pleasure of getting to know her a lot more. I can see why you loved her, Jake! You spoke very highly of her and said you appreciated her because she wasn't giggly and silly. You emphasized the fact that she "didn't mess with your head" the way some girls do and that you could talk to her and laugh with her and just enjoy each other's company! I'm glad she made you happy!!
Your mates always made you happy, too! You would drop everything to be with a mate who called. You loved having 'small' gatherings at our place where you would promise that there would only be 3 or 4 mates coming to play poker and the next thing we knew there would be 16 or 17 people 'making you happy'!
I think one of the greatest comforts in our grief has been the knowledge that you had a happy, fun-filled life! You definitely made my life happier!!! xxx

"MAIL"

This is a difficult one!
I can't really remember you receiving mail of any great significance but I do recall some letters you wrote when you were younger.
When you wrote to Santa Claus you would always make sure that you sent a special hello to each individual reindeer. Your letters to the Easter Bunny would include a warning about the ferocious dog we had in our backyard...we've always only had ShihTzu's or ShihTzu crosses (which wouldn't hurt a fly!)
We once found a letter which you wrote to Sian when she was going through a tough time. You would have been about 13 at the time, but you went to the trouble of letting her know you were thinking of her and hoping that all would be good in her life and telling her that you loved her!
We also have a photo of a letter you wrote to your friend Bec during English class one day. It is highly decorated so I can only imagine that you didn't get any real work done during that class!! Knowing you, you would have put far greater importance on your friendship with Bec (and your love of chicken) than on a silly old English class!
Your mates were very lucky to have known you xxx

"COLOUR"

My children and my husband are the colour in my world!
When you think about it, the world would be quite dull and dreary without people to love sharing it with you! I was so lucky to share almost 20 years of my life with you and those years were certainly very colourful!
Your favourite colour was blue, particularly the aqua shades of blue which were perfectly suited to your very, very blue eyes and your summer tans which you could pick up in just one sunny weekend.
These days you colour my world every time I see a rainbow.
My Mum and Dad gave me a pair of crystal candlesticks for my 50th birthday. These now live on the coffee table in the front room and are ideally positioned so that, at certain times of the morning, the sun's rays are converted to rainbows.
Of course, this only happens on sunny days but they are the days that I know you are with me!
You continue to add colour to my world xxx

"YOUR REFLECTION"

I don't have any profound words for this one! I just know that there are many people out there who will tell you that teenage girls spend a lot of time in the bathroom looking at their reflection in the mirror as they primp and preen. Yes, that's probably true, but what they forget to mention is that teenage boys can be just as bad or even worse!
You seemed to spend ages in the bathroom making sure your hair was just right! Those who knew you well are probably chuckling just a little bit right now as that last statement seems quite ludicrous! Your hair always looked as though you had randomly rubbed your hands through it to make it stand on end (actually, thats exactly how you 'brushed' your hair!). But it still had to be 'just right' and you would use the mirror to place each strand in just the right place!
Your hair has become your trademark and I agree with the mirror... you were gorgeous!!! XXX