My sister Julie is dying. She is about 66 years old and has myelo fibrosis. She is probably going to die in the next day or so.
She is in a hospital in Brisbane and has now been given the sorts of narcotics that deaden the pain and ease death.
In about 5 hours I am flying to Brisbane to be with her in her last few hours/days.
She is being lovingly looked after by her children Tony And Kim. Her husband Gordon is also in Brisbane but he's ill too and in need of support.
What can I say. I've never been really close to my sister but in recent years, especially in the last month or two I've realised how important we are to each other. I rang her when she was in hospital a few months ago and she brightened.
I could cheer her up. That at least was important.
So I went down to see her (Cairns to Brisbane) a month ago and took these pictures. I'm sure I cheered her up a little and saw her improve in health markedly over a few days (coincidentally of course).
She had had 4 operations in one day! She had her spleen removed but the doctors couldn't stop the bleeding. That was a month ago, she's been pretty steadily getting better it seemed but just yesterday she suddenly worsened and she's now deathly ill.
So in a few hours I'm leaving to see her. Am listening to Shane Howard. His music is gentle and comforting.
I wrote a song based on something Julie said to me about a month ago and here's a very rough recording of it. I sang the song to her in hospital a month ago.
She seemed to like it.
She said to me yesterday on the phone "I've got to go" I guess she really meant it.
