Today, I put on a dress and went to the funeral of my great friend, Glenise. Several years ago, when I dabbled more frequently in blogging, Glenise asked me to write something about her, “on that website thingy’ when she died. Of course I said yes and then put it away in the corner of my minds where I keep the things that will never happen – because truly I believed that she would be in my life for ever. She was one of the constants of my universe. I don’t know why my particular voice was important to her but here goes.
Glenise- Sue, Glen, Chooky, Mum, Gran – she went by different names to different people but every name was the definition of a do-er. When she saw a task that needed doing, she did it. Such was the nature of this woman that the many of her good deeds have gone unsung. She didn't do things for accolades or fanfare, she just saw a need and took care of it. I looked around at all the people at her funeral today knowing that all of them had something in common.
Somewhere, in their time of need, Chooky had cooked for them, driven them somewhere, looked after their children, washed their clothes, consoled them, advised them, picked them up when they thought they were broken, dusted them off and put them back on their feet. She did all those things for me, and I feel a bit adrift knowing that my life jacket is gone.
I don’t know if there’s a definitive list, but I lost count of the numbers of vulnerable little humans that Chooky took into her care as foster children. It wasn’t unusual to have her ring late at night – “I’ve got a 2 month old arriving at midnight- do you have any blue baby clothes?” She loved all those babies as if they were her own. She showered them with love but also with the routines so necessary for a good start in life. The nurturing extended to all of her friends’ and neighbours’ children as well. The kitchen at Glenise and Frank’s was always full of miscellaneous mischief makers- and their little faces lined the walls in framed portraits in ever increasing numbers, sometimes updated from baby to school uniform to wedding photo. When Taine was a baby and I went back to work, Glenise was the obvious choice as caregiver. There’s no one I would have trusted more with my own precious miracle. We called her the Baby Whisperer because when she put the baby down to sleep, that’s what the baby did.
Glenise was the ultimate good Samaritan. She had an ear for everyone and an action to match. Countless numbers of us have poured our hearts out to her over a cup of tea, or a sherry, or a brandy and dry – or bubbles on special occasions. She nursed us through sicknesses and heartaches. She chauffered us to appointments and kept vigil with us in hospitals and waiting rooms. We all received congratulatory messages for the slightest success and she never forgot a birthday. And we never forgot hers.
Her Boxing Day birthday was just another reason to extend the Christmas celebrations. Her Christmas tree was as big as her heart and underneath it was a present for each one of those framed faces of the extended family of children on the wall. Each present was hand picked and exactly what we wanted because she knew us all so well. For my kids, Christmas was rounded out with a visit to Chooky’s on Christmas night.
If you were really lucky, as we were many times, you’d be included in the Christmas Day feast; a smorgasboard of roasted magnificence, all cooked by Glenise on the wooden stove, complete with the pudding that had been hanging from the kitchen rafter for weeks, and eaten about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, after copious glasses of champagne and bowls of nuts & bolts.
Christmas lunch was just an elaborate version of the regular Sunday roast that appeared on the table like magic, every single week. Somehow that Sunday roast always spread far enough to feed whichever grand child, visiting relative or stray visitor happened to be about. In 2005 Glenise and Jess came to NZ with us on a school trip. Glenise cooked that Sunday roast, on her own, for 40 people in a tiny caravan park oven.
On top of the love she showered on everyone else, there was the love Chook had for her sisters, her own girls and their families. A prouder Mum, Gran and aunty there never was. And then there was Cappy. As I said at Frank’s funeral, theirs was one of life’s greatest stories of passion and tempest.
Having a sea faring husband meant Glenise had to be a master of adaptability, switching from independent, solo parent to family dynamic on a regular basis. While Frank was away, Glenise managed her household as well as any sea captain. When Frank was home, they disappeared to the bedroom for days on end. Sometimes they drove each other crazy but she would have followed that man to the end of the earth – in fact she once did just that, when she took off on a solo backpacking trip in her 50s- trekking around Europe, staying in hostels and catching up with Frank in different ports.
Her own phone number ended in 098 and she kept that number right through until today. I guess, as a hangover from the telephonist days, even in the days of caller ID, she always answered the phone with that number – ‘Hello, 098”. Sometimes I would try to one up her by answering her phone call with “hello 098” and she’d say, "Annabel, how’d you know it was me?"
There’s another memory that I share with dozens of closet card sharks in the district. Glenise’s card playing skills were second to none. From genteel Crazy Whist afternoons in the lounge rooms of the ladies of the district, to the caravan parks of Warrnambool and Lake Bolac, the jar of gambling coins followed her everywhere and the regular Saturday night after tennis, which later became the Friday night- into the wee hours of Saturday morning, year round blackjack games in the Quinlan’s lounge room were the stuff that legends are made of. Those games were serious business, but like everything she did, they were just another way of bringing people together.
It would be remiss of me not to mention tennis. Tennis was Chooky’s game. While she loved to watch the cricket, it was tennis that she played. I’ve often been confused how her granddaughter became a champion Australian cricketer, because with the amount of Gran’s genes in her she could equally have been belting it out with Ash Barty at Wimbledon instead. In truth, Glenise wasn’t the best tennis player in the world but she was one of the most resilient and determined and that wily backhand of hers outsmarted a lot of would be champions. I remember one day we played in 40 degree heat and most of us wanted to call it quits but we were playing against Jude’s team and if Judy was playing on, so was Glenise! For many years we played country week together in Warrnambool. We’d start at 9, play till 5, go back to the van for a couple of sherries and then we’d walk back over the road and play the twilight comp. And then come home to start the card game. Her energy was boundless.
It seems brutally unfair to me that the last part of her life was robbed of that energy but today was a glorious day for tennis, so I’m taking that as a sign that Chooky’s already back on the court somewhere.
And that brings me back to my initial thought – the conviction that Glenise would always be with us- because, of course, I realise now that this is true. The energy of someone who touches so many lives, in so many ways, can never be lost. She was a champion for the underdog, a supporter of the unsupported, a carer to the care givers, a helping hand to anyone who needed it. She’ll stay with us in every kind word we say, with every act of altruism we perform. She taught us all that it’s possible to be a truly good person. That’s Chooky’s legacy and we can honour it by doing our best to be the type of friends to each other, that she was to us.
