WHEN I was barely a tween I remember my mum getting unimaginably awful news over the phone.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
She had lost a niece; for my brother and I, it was our younger cousin.
For some reason the family car was not at home, meaning my mum got on my brother's BMX bike to ride the two kilometres to the farm workshop to deliver the devastating news to Dad.
My five-year-old cousin, Sally, had lost her almost life-long battle with Leukaemia. (How is it even possible that a one-year-old gets a cancer diagnosis?!)
Amid the absolute awfulness of the news that day, I clearly - and somehow ridiculously - remember thinking I'd never seen my mum ride a bike before.
I hoped and prayed she wouldn't stack that BMX on the gravel track!
Even during life's saddest moments, somehow the most mundane things can still stand out.
Fourteen years ago when I moved to New Zealand pregnant with my first child, I met a Kiwi journalist who I clicked with straight up.
Just like me, Paula loved words, absurd stories, Gilmore Girls, travel, rain, recycling and homemade cake.
Unlike me, she was a vegetarian who spent most of her spare time hiking around the North Island.
At least once a week she'd take me to a new Wellington cafe to experience Kiwi cuisine and sweets. We walked everywhere - up hills and down dales through the capital city's relentless gales - so it all balanced out in the end (the cake and the food miles on foot)!
After our daughter arrived in spring 2006, Paula became our chief babysitter.
No one else in the country could rock our baby to sleep like she did; she was our rock star - so to speak!
At least once a week she'd take me to a new Wellington cafe to experience Kiwi cuisine and sweets. We walked everywhere - up hills and down dales through the city's relentless gales - so it all balanced out in the end (the cake and the food miles on foot)!
The youngest of a big family, Paula already had more nieces and nephews than most and was a certified pro at the kid thing.
Much younger than my husband and I, she was only newly-married.
In late 2007 when my family decided to move back to Australia, Paula had not been her energetic and trail-blazing self. Doctors had put it down to anaemia.
Within weeks of getting home, Paula wrote to say doctors were now tossing up between which type of blood cancer she had; either way it was a devastating blow for a young, fit, newlywed and her American husband!
We had unwittingly baled on her at the worst time possible!!
During the following decade, Paula put up a ferocious fight undergoing treatment for Leukaemia at a time she should have been starting a family, building a home and frequenting Wellington cafes.
Instead she was ticking off her bucket list and not yet 40.
When I got word that Paula had succumbed to cancer in October 2018, I was, coincidently, visiting the most sacred place in Australia, Uluru. She was 42.
Fittingly for a wordsmith like Paula, her family celebrated her life at Shakespeare's Cliff in Whitianga in January 2019.
Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of World Cancer Day.
There is nothing like losing a family member, friend or loved one sickeningly premature to put your own life into real perspective.
The best you can do is to take the trip, eat the cake, climb the mountain, take a chance, watch the sunset (or rise, if you're an early bird!) and dance like no one else is watching.
In keeping with that, I've joined NSW Cancer Council fundraiser Stars of the Border Dance for Cancer 2020 in memory of all those who were ripped off by cancer of their fair share of sunrises and dance sets and to help give others - through treatment and research - many more of both.
Dance for Cancer 2020 runs in the Albury Entertainment Centre Theatrette on Friday, May 1.
General public tickets are available on Monday, March 23, from the Albury Entertainment Centre box office.