It has now been a year since Havana's 24-year old cousin Autumn, my niece, died. She struggled with cancer for more than half her life. She and her parents never had to think about health insurance as she grew up in a country with free healthcare.
She was a worker at a clothes store, who would not get health insurance in this country,but more than that she was an example of the strength of the human spirit. She was also a product of the enormous solidarity that surrounded her. Her friend set up a Facebook account after Autumn's death to send messages for her family. Within two days over 400 friends joined it.
I never would have dreamed that one day I would be Autumn's pallbearer. It's an unbearable thought.
I wrote this to Autumn the day I found out she had died. . . . .
Autumn. I did not get the chance to say goodbye to you.
The last time I spoke to you was on Christmas Day. Sian held the phone while you were throwing up, but you still came to the phone to talk. That was you Autumn.
You had a life of enormous adversity and struggle. But you were never alone. Every hardship that came your way was met with an equal force of love from your family, and then your friends.
You have left me, as your uncle, with many good memories and many good feelings that will remain strong in my heart for as long as I live. You quietly made your mark on me, as you did on so many.
You pushed us all further than we thought we could go.
I remember Florida in 1996.Your impish smile that subtley lifted from one side of your face that pressured me into going on an insane fairground ride that I should never have agreed to. They shackled up David and yourself and me for our 200-foot freefall and then you and your Dad let me in on your private joke: that we were going to be dropping headfirst. That’s right. Headfirst. 200 feet. I vividly remember the silence on the first 2 seconds of the drop when my heart just about stopped. And by 5 seconds we were all screaming and laughing. You were enjoying the adrenalin rush, I was simply relieved that I was still alive. Only you could have got me to commit to such madness.
Many of the bedtime stories that I tell my own small girls are modeled on those I first made up 20 years ago when you were a wee one. I always tossed aside your children’s books in favor of a story about Bugs Bunny coming home drunk from the pub or something more ridiculous. Your reactions and your sisters’ helped me figure out how to communicate with kids, lessons my own kids benefit from today. And I think part of your personality was the big, cartoon-like, goofy jokester. That makes me smile right now.
As I remember it, you were both a regular kid and a very unique one. While almost every kid can sense a TV is turned on from a hundred yards and are irresistibly drawn towards it, that wasn’t you. You had absolutely no interest in television. At an early age you told me that you could not understand why people would center their lives around a box in their living rooms. That was you.
You were drawn to travel, to things new. Your quiet demeanor was probably routinely misinterpreted as boredom. It seemed to me that you loved to listen, absorbing the world and new experiences. You were always up for trying out something new. Well, except in the world of food, where you insisted on the most boring and simple dishes. You were quite militantly opposed to trying new food.
Visiting you once a year I watched you grow by annual episode. With your two sisters, we’d head out somewhere together on the train and catch up with what’s going on in your lives. What you hated. What you loved. What irritated you. What was new and what was getting old.
It seems like your sickness was always there, tugging at your strength and resilience and constantly testing your patience, of which you had more than the rest of us put together. You didn’t like being treated differently for being sick, but people who knew that you were, were unable to not treat you differently. It became a part of you and how you dealt with the world, as much as how everyone around you dealt with you.
Alongside your sickness was the guilt of feeling that you were slowing down those around you. You may have slowed those around you, but you helped everyone around you become stronger and better for it. You enriched our lives.
Your family built a fort around you. A strong wall of love impenetrable from the outside but one that you could step over whenever you wanted. You were encouraged to go forward. Get a job. Go to Uni. Drive your mini. Travel. But you always had a warm place to come home to.
You were never alone. Mum and Dad and Sian and Tuesday were always there for you. All day, all night, every moment. You could not have asked for a more loving, more giving family. And in the end, isn't that all we really need. It was, in part, your family that helped make you the loving and giving person you were Autumn.
I have cried for you in short spurts a dozen times these past days, but the loss for your Mum and Dad and Sian and Tuesday is unimaginable. You were their rock and they were yours.
I am also glad you had the National Health System and more paid family leave should be what we demand next. Free healthcare and time to be with those that are sick.
If I could talk to you now, Autumn. I would thank you for what you gave to us all. For your uniqueness. For your frankness and honesty. Your toughness and fragility wrapped as one. Your big heart. Your quirkyness. Your crazy sense of humor and at the same time the infectious calm you had about you.
You did slow down those around you. And in this ugly, money-grabbing world, you were refreshingly different. Your life improved the world. Thank you, Autumn.
