Coolum 2.0 - Friendship & Farewells

Coolum 8th - 21st August

We were now heading back down along the east coast towards Adelaide to spend Xmas at home with family. We had planned to stay in Coolum for 4 weeks before flying to Perth mid September to meet our new grand baby due mid August.

While in Hervey Bay I read a Facebook post from a lady in Tasmania (Liz) asking if anyone would like to park their van at a house in Coolum for free in exchange for helping out an invalid lady (Darien). I contacted Liz saying we were happy to leave our van at Coolum Caravan Park but I may be able to help Darien out as I had plenty of spare time & would be in Coolum for a month.
Liz put me in contact with Darien, a 72 year old lady with severe emphysema who is on oxygen 24/7 & almost totally dependent on carers for all her medical & personal needs.
By her own admission she said in the past she wasn't too interested in having lots of friends so was not particularly 'community minded'. She now regretted this as she needed a friend now more than ever. She had paid nurses & carers to look after her needs but no one to just chat with & help ease the boredom of life confined to her home.
I visited Darien 2-3 hrs a few times a week & we just chatted about her life & mine & anything else that came up. She was a very interesting lady & she thought I was very interesting so it was a bit of a mutual admiration society. She told me she had no appetite & had lost a lot of weight living on tinned pumpkin soup as she loved pumpkin soup...... Tinned!! I was horrified as pumpkin soup was so easy to make. I then offered to make her some pumpkin soup for which she was very grateful. She paid for the ingredients & I made a few batches in her kitchen while we chatted. She thought Gary sounded interesting & wanted to meet him to hear about his work as an engineer. I think she was quite an intellectual in her day.
I offered Gary's services to fix anything she needed but she declined, then one day she asked if he could have a look at a blown downlight in her kitchen. She said numerous people had tried to take the blown globe out with no luck. Gary fixed it in a flash. She was so very grateful to him. From then on she kept calling him her hero which Gary loved.
She was a lovely, honest, interesting lady & was so appreciative of something so simple as just 'company'. I say 'was' because, sadly, Darien passed away just 3 months later......

One of the most difficult things about travelling full time is being away from family. Gary's mother had been in excellent health for most of her 85 years but Late last year her age started catching up with her & 6 months later she very reluctantly moved into a nursing home. Gary's brother & sister in law Mick & Annie took on the almost full time job of making all of the arrangements & helping her make the difficult transition from living very independently in her own home to being fully dependent on others in a nursing home. It was quite surreal for us being so far away & feeling immense guilt at not being there to help but also realising that we couldn't have done any more if we were there. Gary enjoyed phoning his mum every day & most days she loved chatting & hearing what we'd been up to.
At 8am on August 21st Annie called to tell Gary that his mum was about to 'leave'. She held the phone to his mums ear for Gary to have one last chat & to tell her that he loved her. She passed away 3 hours later. Gary & I will be forever grateful to Mick & Annie for so selflessly enabling us to live our dream this past 6 months.
The next 24 hours were a whirlwind of arrangements. We were already booked to fly from Brisbane to Perth to meet our soon to be born grandchild. We changed our flight to Brisbane to Adelaide, then on to Perth mid September. We stored our car & caravan at a storage facility in Brisbane.
We arrived back in Adelaide the following day & stayed with Mick & Annie for three weeks. We spent this time finalising arrangements & the funeral, packing up Gwens house, garage sale & enjoying family time. While it was sad saying goodbye to Gwen, Gary summed it up pretty well by saying "I can only hope I live to be 85 in almost perfect health" She was a lucky lady.

Next stop Perth!!!!