Learning to be present: Journeying up and down to Melbourne for the last three months to visit my sister Sylvia in hospital, for a short time in rehab, and now preparing for her funeral, rotating in and out of those places with my twin, has taught Obadiah a lot. To be present in the moment – Obadiah slips into the role of an observer too easily, a bad reporter’s habit – and to be silent when that is what is needed.
And when he’s really needed it, Jesus has been present, too.
And by reading her sermons and a series of notes on hymns, I have learned how close a follower of Jesus, Sylvia was.
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“We are dismantling a person’s life,” twin Peter observed as we cleared Sylvia’s semi detached house. More poignantly we were disassembling a shrine to Obadiah’s boyhood family, a museum of objects from our shared past. Embroidery from my mother, the first Bible reading notes given to Sylvia by her god-mother, a piano-shaped music boc made by my father and so much else.
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My Mum to a T: a reminder of what Syvia’s mother, and my adoptive and “real” mother was like came in a link sent to cheer me up.
Yes, she was really like that. Well, Obadiah thinks so anyway.
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Vale Shakespeare: In a doubly sad time, cartoonist for The Sydney Morning Herald, John Shakespeare has died. So let’s tell one more story. Back in the 80’sJohn was the cartoonist on the soon to expire afternoon daily The Sun, which shared a large newsroom floor with the Herald and The Financial Review.
I was art director and design editor for the lot, an empire I later split into three parts – sort of what happened to the Roman empire – and was able to rescue John when The Sun went down.
But what to do with him? The Herald was not about to welcome him straight away. The place was as factionalised as the ALP. So I hid him in the upstairs art room for six months, strily forbidding him to sign anything, and he emerged as a fine caricaturist as well as cartoonist.
He became the go-to person for farewell cards which are treasured by Herald alumni, including Obadiah.
