Ratatouille

A month or so ago I thought that 100,000 hits on the blog would be a good number to get to. This week we passed that number and some people have encouraged us to keep the stories coming so we’ll try.  -:)

In a Pixar movie called Ratatouille which Matt (and all of us) loves, one of the characters called Linguine, says that his Mum has died and someone else is awkward about how to respond. Linguine is pretty casual and comfortable and replies, “Oh no. Oh, she’s OK. She believed in heaven and stuff, so she’s got all that covered.” Matt reminded me of that part in the movie when we went to check that Ben’s plaque and flowers were OK in the cemetery this week: Ben had all that covered too.

Matt didn’t think he particularly wanted to go to the cemetery but eventually he did exactly what I think Ben would have done in his shoes. He climbed the tree overlooking Ben’s plaque and standing in a fork of the tree, he rested his back on one of the branches and read his book. It’s a peaceful spot and we’re sure there is a spiritual reason for that. In the end it was Matt telling me that he wanted to stay there a bit longer.

Merry Christmas from us all,
Lindy

Two years on

Some weeks before Ben died a group of friends, cousins and brothers got together to shave their heads in solidarity with Ben's chemo-induced baldness. Ben was in hospital at the time but Stu and Photoshop put him in the picture.

"Bald is Better" went up in Ben’s ICU room a few weeks before he died and when he was compos mentis he enjoyed it. That’s over two years ago now.

I wondered the other day what he would notice if he ‘popped back for a day’. Loads of changes in the lives of his friends and family; people growing up, finishing studying, getting jobs, getting married.

At a local level he didn’t know about the Icehouse or that Matt would be a mad keen ice-hockey player; Ben started roller hockey in his early teens in Tucumán and wanted to play more ice hockey too.

Would he be surprised to know that Andy had owned four cars since he last saw him? I don’t think so.

At a societal level? Well he would be pleased to see that Iced Coffee Big Ms are still the same and that iconic Tim Tams still rule the chocolate biscuit aisle. He didn’t know Michael Jackson had stopped singing and dancing and he didn’t see The Dark Knight.

On a happy note, surely he would be delighted to know that Prince William - Australia’s future King, as a prominent politician reminded us - finally became engaged to Kate Middleton. Not!

What would he say about the unstoppable rise of Facebook? Would he finally succumb to it if he were still around? Would he have shrugged his shoulders and said “It’s no big deal” and signed on as one more of the millions, even though he was against it in 2008?

And what of this blog? Surely he would be surprised to know that the blog he asked us to set up - just to let his friends know how he was doing - is now about to pass 100,000 visits.

And all the questions we would ask him!

Rest in peace Ben… while you can, because when we get there it’s going to be one long party.

Goodbye for now

Tomorrow it will be two
long years since Ben left
us. Too long.

Two years ago today,
the doctors suggested
that the best thing for
him was to be put back
into a coma. Ben agreed
and said some goodbyes
before going to sleep again.

Patagonian (musical) adventures

More from Day 1 and part of Day 2 in the continuing saga of the Patagonian Chronicles: A brief glimpse into the surprising musical taste of the Mulherins. (See September 11th blog post below for the background.)

Tim wrote:

Woke up to Matt singing “Barbie girl” again this morning (can’t seem to get it out of his head.) And Andy singing “I’m your Venus, I’m your…” Listened to the second CD of The Magician’s Nephew… Ben changed the CD to Queen’s Greatest Hits at the old folks’ request.

“I didn’t realise Queen had so many well known songs,” says Mum, and Ben told her that it was a greatest hits CD. “Oh. So this is all of them then,” she says. Later, Ben and I [Tim] are left alone in the car and Ben puts Savage Garden on (couldn’t resist any longer).

Now Ben:

Woke up to “Another one bites the dust” from Matt this morning. Tim’s in the driver’s seat. Not quite sure what he’s doing yet ... Humming along to Petra. The gearbox is suffering greatly as clunking is frequent. We’ve been behind a truck for a fair while now and Dad must have a crick in the neck from leaning over into Tim’s airspace to see if it’s safe for him to overtake.

Andy’s blending “Fall to Pieces” by Avril into “Rock DJ” by Robbie, at Mum’s request. Tim overtakes the truck to applause and cheers. “Good driving Tim” says Matt as soon as Tim comes back to our lane… [Later...] Tim’s still driving. The elbows are at a sweet angle. Now we’ve cranked up Cat Stevens: “..find a girl, settle down, look at me, I’m happy.”

Chris's dream

The other night I dreamt of Ben, something I rarely do. I was walking in a public place -- I don’t know where -- and I realized Ben was walking beside me. He was the 13 or 14 year old Ben, still a boy but only just, the gentle Ben of home schooling in Tucumán with cats on his desk. And that blue striped long sleeved dress shirt.

I was surprised, not because I knew Ben was much older than that, but because I knew he had died. I was overwhelmed by his return. I wanted to say something to other people, to share him, maybe to let them know he was back. Ben didn’t say anything but I knew he didn’t want me to draw attention to his presence. I put my hand on his back, friendly, but also to make sure he was real. We walked a few more strides then he was gone. No words, no purpose, except maybe to show himself. That’s all.

Patagonia Adventures - Day 5

Another entry from the Patagonia trip diary... Ben writes:

The rain is really bad. Really bad. Its 2:30 and really dark. It has stopped and started but we're now heading into an almost black patch of sky. Has anyone seen 'Twister"? Sting and the Police are screaming out "there's a hole in my life". We've just had a stop cos Matt's window is letting water in. We're trying to work out if it's being sucked in by Mum's window. "So when you open your window, it causes suction," says Dad. Fascinating. 

Let's see if Mum can turn the Police back on. Not sure if it was paused or stopped. It's back on. It was paused. We've averaged 81 km/hr in the last eight hours which is pretty good for us. Mum and Matt have been doing well. Andy's just been released from the back row and is reorganising the dashboard from the second row so that he gets a good view of the road. "I can't stand losing you" - The Police. Rainy. Grey. Went past another 'Australian' (as Dad says) windmill. Matt wants to count all of the ones we see on the trip. I think we've been on eight for a while though.

Tarantulas in Patagonia

Another excerpt from one of Ben's entries in our Patagonia travel diary. The setting? A people mover with seven of us in it. It was 2005. So Ben, Tim and Andy were big. We were pretty squashed in. Matt was little and we were trying to do 10,000 kms in three weeks as we wanted to see as much of the south of Argentina as we could. The audio books of the Chronicles of Narnia were our constant companion. Ben writes:

We're being overtaken by beer trucks and ambulances [Tim's driving]… 'There's another smelly pond' says Matt. "This is the provincia of smelly ponds" says Mum. Pete points out 'mini flamingos'. No one knows what he means by them though, and no one saw anything. Is he going on his own little trips?

We're listening to "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe." Apparently there are tarantulas on the road, so we're going to try and stop and see the next one. Dad's in the front seat and has wet jocks and a wet singlet hanging in his ear. He went for a run this morning and washed them in the shower. Brilliant. Edmund has just met the witch for the first time.

We just drove past a 'huge' tarantula. We didn't stop. And another one. Andy's frustrated that Tim can't stop for a tarantula. Dad thinks that by the time we've stopped they'll be off the road. Possibly. Unless they're squashed. Matt doesn't think we'll see any as 'they move quite fast'. Edmund is on to Turkish Delight.

Started slowing down for a tarantula but the masterminds in the front two seats decided against it, 'cos it was squashed. So we're not stopping for squashed ones as they're squashed and not stopping for live ones as by the time we stop they'll be off the road.

Half squashed would be good, 'cos then they'll only be able to drag themselves off the road, at not too quick a pace and we should be able to make an aquaintance. Mmmm.

And he never knew Tracy Turnblad!

Two larrikins together. He is surely cheering you on Jaz as you do so well. (Jaz Flowers moved from the cast of Fame to taking on the starring role of Hairspray.)

Blogging Grief

Recently one of Ben and Tim's friends who studied science with
them at Melbourne Uni. sent us a copy of an essay she did on the
use and value of 'Social Network Sites' (SNS) for adolescents during
chronic illness or in different grief settings.

Ben's blog in the weeks leading up to December 8, 2008 and in these
twenty-two months since that awful date, has been significant for many
of us and so Kath's essay rang true.

Kath is particularly interested in the grief felt by the adolescent
peers and friends of a dying/deceased adolescent/young adult.  She
says that research shows that this important group of mourners are
largely overlooked. She goes on to say;

An important aspect of these SNSs in relation to grief that is often
overlooked is their ability to transcend time. Facebook pages and blogs become virtual tombstones, accessible to grieving adolescents at various stages of their bereavement process. This is particularly important for those adolescents who start out as what McNeil (1991) described as 'passive grievers', avoiding discussing their loss with others and internalising their grief. These networks allow adolescents who prefer passive coping to determine their level of involvement, providing them with the opportunity to 'lurk', visit online communities without participating in them, with the option of at some point taking part and becoming 'active grievers' (Buis, 2008; McNeil et al., 1991).

Kath goes on to talk about the importance of various health
professionals' roles in advising patients and their families and
friends about the possible therapeutic value of using SNS.  This
has certainly been true in our case too.

The subject of Ben's blog came up while I (Lindy) was at  "The Compassionate
Friends," a bereavement centre for parents and siblings. When
I showed them Ben's blog online, they were keen for Chris to do some
workshops about how to set up a blog spot as a memoir for a child who
has died.

We have also had various unknown people contact us during the last two
years in different states of pain who have been somewhat encouraged to
read about our journey.

Thanks Kath!

Two Bens

We were watching Cuba Gooding Jr. in a movie at the weekend and it reminded me of a new movie he’s in which then got me thinking about whether we’d ever mentioned one of the stories that inspired Ben from an early age.

When Ben was eight or nine I guess, he discovered a book called “Gifted Hands”. An autobiography written by an Afro-American called Ben Carson. It is a story of a boy with a strong belief in God, who has a dream. Despite difficult circumstances, his determination, perseverance and hope motivate him to pursue this dream and he eventually becomes a paediatric neuro-surgeon at Johns Hopkins University.

A young Ben Mulherin was looking for Christian heroes and was encouraged and inspired by this man’s faith and his ‘never give in’ gutsy approach to life’s challenges. He read the two books by Ben Carson several times as he was growing up and when we returned with all our books from Argentina in 2006, he was disappointed to find that “Gifted Hands” had gone missing.

He ordered a new copy for himself and read it again shortly before he became sick in June 2008. Ben Carson’s contribution to paediatric nuerosurgery and the stories of lives saved and changed in his books played a part at least, I believe, in Ben Mulherin deciding to study medicine.

So back to the first paragraph of this blog: Ben Carson’s story has recently been made into a movie called, not surprisingly “Gifted Hands” and Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Ben Carson. The movie is very interesting; worth a look.

Lindy

Patagonia adventures – Day 1

Recently we dug out the family diary of our 3 week trip to Patagonia, southern Argentina, in 2005. The seven of us in our van for 10,000km. During the trip we passed the portable computer around so everyone could contribute to the electronic journal. Tim started the ball rolling on Day 1 then Ben's distinctive style shines through as he takes over. We had been on the road an hour and a half:

Tim:

Dad started driving and almost rear ended a car after 1km. Andy was grumpy when we left but promptly got over it when he was sat between Ben and Tim who challenged him on the difficulty of maintaining the facial expression he was sporting.

Km 50: Matt makes an attempt to sing "Barbie Girl" (who did he learn that from?) with not much success with the lyrics or the tune. After 10 minutes of  "It's a Barbie girl, it's a Barbie girl" most of us were looking fwd to the next song.

Ben:

Just got through Santiago without a problem. Matt's slapping Pete on the back and singing “a kid’ll eat ivy too” better than Barbie girl. Pete now wants a seat change, but Tim and I won’t oblige, and grumps is confined to the back seat until an hour after lunch. “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?” Now it’s “duba do duba dup” from Tarzan. With little ‘whoops’ in between. Sounds like a video game soundtrack.

Andy’s reading over my shoulder with all critical powers turned on. Pete's got his finger in his mouth and is leaning as far away from Matt as he can and looking out the front. Mum’s knitting something. Dad’s driving. Tim’s not doing anything.

“Matt's getting a lot of dirty looks and it should be out in the open” says grandpa Tim in a voice no one can hear. “I don’t really get excited by the middle seats” says Tim. Pete tries to convince people that he’s “tired and wants to go to sleep”, however the real reason is suspected to be that he would prefer his front seat points at some later stage, plus is sick of Matt, and also passing dirty yogurt spoons and yogurt containers forward to Mum, who puts them somewhere.

Some alarm just went off, which means that Matt gets to choose a CD. He’s chosen Narnia, all 31 hours of it.

Just had a series of ‘humpies’ on the road. Dad got excited by it, and said ‘huumpie!’ on each one, and tried to get the car to bounce higher by pulling up on the steering wheel

Dodged some billie goats on the road. Weather is darkish and grey. Road is semi dry.

Andy just got another half an hour in the back seat cos dad asked about the toolbox, and I said “I don’t know”. He now has his death mask on. We now enter a discussion on the basic toolbox and its components. I propose 2 adjustable spanners, vice grips, two screweys. Dad wants WD40 for Mum’s seat. Andy’s being encouraged by Tim who says that he should get the back seat moulded to his ashole, and Mum says “Don’t give up hope mate.”

"What are you writing Ben?!" says Tim. “His feelings” says Andy. Haha.

Listened to Narnia for about 20 minutes, and then Mum decided that a little town was interesting enough to turn it off. She pressed stop, so we have to start it from the start. T’is going to be a long 31 hours, as it will have to be uninterrupted if Mum can’t find the pause button.

And so we drove on, only 9900km to go...

Many thanks...

After receiving donations at Ben's birthday party last Saturday, we wrote a cheque for $1000 for research into bone marrow transplantion. It will go to a research team headed by Ben's specialist. A bone marrow transplant is the only hope for people with certain kinds of cancer. Unfortunately Ben did not stay around long enough to have a bone marrow transplant.

Snake tying en masse

On Saturday night we had Ben’s 25th birthday party. We loved the energy and happy noise of the night. There were plenty of friends, music, food, laughing, remembering and a highly competitive time devoted to an Allen’s snakes tying race. (Ben was a gifted snake tier.)

We also collected over $600 for the Bone Marrow Transplant Research Laboratory where Tony Schwarer, who was Ben’s specialist, is the head.  We are grateful for so many of Ben’s friends for coming and helping us in our journey. We hope it was an encouragement to them too.

Happy Birthday Ben

Today is Ben’s birthday. He would be 25 today. I don’t seem to have moved very far in my thoughts and feelings. “Why? How can it be? Surely it didn’t happen. Surely God had a better idea than this. Can’t he come back now?” Those questions and many more of a similar sort beat in my brain over and over.

It's good that we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. I’m glad I still can’t see the future. I’m glad I only have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I’m grateful for lovely things that keep happening despite pain and loss. I’m glad, so glad we had Ben for all those years.

There are so many memories to make us smile. The ratbag and the contrite, the testosterone charged and the cat lover, "The Backstreet Boys” and "Green Day”, “Nightwish” and “The Corrs”, the super-energetic and the “curl up in a corner with a good book”, roller-hockey and swimming, water-skiing, snow-skiing, friends, fun, food, laughter and serious convictions and commitments all grounded in belief and faith.

We’ll celebrate your birthday with thankfulness for the 23 we had with you.

Lindy

"Don't forget the family"

Tim recently had this article published in the British Medical Journal.


I stood beside the bed in silence. Emotional confusion overpowered the
urge to speak. The room was silent except for the drone of the
ventilator and the clicking of the drug pumps. "Take all the time you
need. Let us know when you're ready," the intensivist said. Two hours
later we were "ready"—as ready as we were ever going to be. The doctor
came into the crowded room and turned off the ventilator. He twisted
the monitor around so that we couldn't see it. He walked out silently.
A long 10 minutes would be an understatement. Ben struggled to
breathe, fluid rattling in his lungs. And then he breathed his last.


Six months earlier my 23 year old brother was fit and healthy and was
completing his science degree to progress on to medicine. Natural
killer cell lymphoma wasn't even looming on the horizon; the only hint
of it was a small pea-sized lump on his leg.


It is inconceivable to articulate the emotional strain of having a
terminally ill brother. But what I can express is the significance of
a positive interaction between the doctors and the family of someone
who is chronically unwell. The interest and time that a doctor invests
in "the family" will not have a direct effect on the medical outcome.
But it will affect the journey for the patient and the family.


Doctors need to be skilled in juggling. To possess competent medical
and surgical skills is not enough. They also have to manage emotions
and concerns. Although the patient is the clinician's primary concern,
I think that doctors also have a duty to those who are close to the
patient. Some of Ben's doctors changed the experience of his illness
for me as his brother. As a future clinician I never want to forget
this and how fundamental it is to being a respected doctor.


It was 10:30 pm and I was sitting next to Ben's bed on a stool in the
intensive care unit. As he was being rude and uncommunicative 
— reasonable, I suppose, because he was in an induced
coma — I decided to study instead. "What are you up to Tim?" the
registrar asked as he walked up to check Ben's charts. "Studying for
my anatomy exam tomorrow. I'm hoping to get into medicine next year,"
I replied. "Good work," he said, "All the best with that." A couple of
days later I walked into the unit and the same doctor was on duty.
"Hey Tim. How did your anatomy exam go on Wednesday?" he asked.
It is in the doctor's interest to establish a good relationship with
the family of the patient. If a busy intensive care doctor is taking
the time to remember my name, what I'm studying, and when my exam is,
it makes me feel confident that he cares as much or more about my
brother, the patient. If family members have positive feelings towards
the doctor, they are more likely to respect his or her opinion and be
willing to take their advice.


A lot of medical specialists receive a bad name because they fall
short when it comes to interpersonal skills. Doctors who declare that
it's not their job to care for the family of a seriously ill person
are gravely mistaken. Medicine is a holistic art, and the physical
being cannot be divorced from the emotional being. This includes the
family. Undoubtedly the patient is in need of a doctor who provides
medical treatment. The family, conversely, need a doctor who
communicates timely information and shows an appropriate level of
concern. Ben's oncologist had a great ability to juxtapose an
extremely high level of medical competence with an appropriate degree
of concern and compassion for the patient and family. This made us
feel that Ben was an important person, not simply the case of natural
killer cell lymphoma in bed eight.


Ben's six month battle with cancer was the most excruciating
experience of my life. This was a tragic situation with a tragic
ending, but as a family we were well supported by the medical staff.
As well as having high levels of respect and compassion, the doctors
engaged us in all the decisions made about Ben's condition. An
impersonal and cold approach would have led to a far more agonising
experience.


I hope to practise what I preach. None of this is complicated.
Supporting a family is not difficult: a few simple questions and
remembering names can make a considerable difference. That doctors
lead busy lives is a given, so if we as students don't think about
these things now we will forget to practise them later on.

From Stu

Stu sent the following comment plus photo:

I'll never forget walking around a supermarket with a hungry Ben.

Be it a packet of "Mr Donut" chocolate-iced-jam-ball doughnuts, or an iced coffee, or later on, a bottle of wild-berry flavored drinking yogurt, Ben would pluck the selected item off the shelf, open the lid and begin to consume the contents whilst trawling the supermarket aisles (and in the event of it being a multiple item selection, such as donuts, he would irresistibly encourage others to join in. I always felt somewhat sneaky, or naughty, but he'd always put on that reassuring, "come-on"-type voice and convince me "It's OK...I do it all the time.")

The said, as yet unpurchased, food item would often have been long consumed by the time we finished the shopping task, and the empty packaging perched carefully on the top of the basket.

I'll never forget the various shocked, bemused and more often than not; indifferent faces at the checkout as he would hand over an empty box/bottle to be scanned, and promptly ask if they had a bin into which he could dispose of the no longer needed packaging item.

I can't wait to split a cheeky 4-pack of "Mr D's" with him again. :)

Food help

I am thinking (already) about whether we do something for Ben's birthday in August this year and the thought of a party led me to think of food.

I thought of foods that remind me of Ben and inevitably I thought of chocolate pudding. I looked back at the chocolate pudding blogs and thought I'd ask people to send in other recipes - however many you like. I am thinking mainly of food that Ben enjoyed or that Ben was rude about or hated, or a meal you had with Ben that had a story to go with it…or something that Ben used to cook (well or badly).

I know for example, that in Ben's last couple of weeks at home, before he went to hospital for the last time, he practically lived on two delicious chocolate slices that Allyson made him as she knew they were his favourites.

It will be fun to read your ideas. ☺:-)

Thanks!
Lindy

Talking of cats

When Ben got sick we begged the real estate agent to let us have cats in our "no pets" house. Under the circumstances he relented and we got Teddy and Tiffany. Ben never quite got to know them but he would have appreciated Teddy's creative genius... Here's Teddy at work. (And for the skeptics: no, there is no one on the other side of the door.)

Of course!

I (Lindy) went to Ben’s plaque the other day in order to say hi and also to change the flowers. I only use artificial flowers as I hate seeing all the dead ones on the top of people’s resting places.

I took a little while as I had to extricate the old flowers which had buried their stems into the sand below the plaque. I was kneeling on a piece of cardboard as the ground was wet.

I was arranging little daisies in the plastic vase. They are bright and cheery and don’t look ‘kitsch’ I don’t think.  As I worked I became increasingly sure that there was something with me. My certainty of its presence grew gently but surely.

It is hard and inaccurate to put the experience into words because there were no words but it was a gorgeous and “of course!”  kind of  growing certainty that I was not alone.

I realised slowly but surely and again “of course” (and I smiled to myself): there was a cat sitting next to me. There was no cat in the flesh of course, but it was definitely the presence of a cat that I felt to be next to me and I thought “Of course there’s a cat here with Ben! If anything would be here with Ben it would be a kindly, smiling, purring cat.”

My growing awareness of its presence reminded me of a record of Alice in Wonderland that my sisters used to listen to. In it, the Cheshire cat would appear slowly with a musical sound that crescendoed and echoed announcing its gradual materialisation.

It really tickled my fancy as I thought “How neat heaven is going to be if it’s like this! The clumsy rules of gravity and existence and time and space just don’t apply and a veil of separation isn’t there. A bit like “Hmm. What does Mum need now? Yep. A cat next to her sent by me.”  Zap!

Of course there would be a cat where Ben is. Of course!

Ben home schooling in Argentina

"Losing Ben"

A piece I wrote a few months ago appeared this morning in Eureka Street.

High sticking - from Lindy

One of the passions of Ben’s teenage years was roller hockey. I think through watching the movie “The Mighty Ducks” he caught the “roller/ice hockey bug.” People who get the bug really get the bug!

We managed to find an equally fanatical group of teenagers/adults in Tucumán and so began a love for the sport. When we returned to Melbourne every few years Ben would join a club and play. He always spoke of wanting to play ice hockey. Just before he was diagnosed with cancer I found him a pair of ice hockey gloves. When Chris was in Europe Ben asked him to buy him ice hockey skates - again, just before the cancer kicked in.

While Tim, Andy and Pete all played in Tucumán along with Ben, it became too difficult to get to training and games far off in Melbourne, so the sport went quiet in the Mulherin household.

But…  last August Matt started playing. He quickly got the skating skills he needed under his belt and the game skills quickly followed. He and Pete are both keen (and good).

Chapter Two started when Matt found a very good pair of hockey ice skates while rummaging around in a Salvos store. How could I refuse when there just happened to be a summer course of ten weeks of ice hockey scrimmages and development classes that were suited for his age group? Matt is now playing ice-hockey for a club in the peewee level with some amazing young players, and Ice House and/or Oakleigh are part of our weekly experience.

This is another way that we carry Ben with us in 2010.  Matt is very happy to be carrying on something that Ben loved and did well. He often talks about him and together we smile as we imagine what Ben would say about his little brother ‘gunning it’ on the ice. We smile at how it would have made him start ice-hockey himself; he wouldn’t have been able to resist. These things help.

Ssshhh... from Lindy

Matt and I were wandering along a bike path together the other day. I had a bottle of Coke Zero and I opened it. He commented on what lovely sound the Ssshhh… was. I smiled and agreed and asked him if he remembered that Ben used to make that noise. It was so convincing that we were often caught out, looking around to find the bottle. I was surprised that Matt couldn't remember the noise.

I think another Mulherin will have to step up to the plate to educate Matt. I'll do auditions this afternoon to find the best rendition.

Steak anyone?

From Jill...

I remember Ben staying with us for a few weeks and working hard on the farm – I was impressed by his confidence one evening– "who is going to eat all the steaks?" "Me" said Ben without a flinch – I believe there was a traditional Argentine serving PLUS still on the BBQ – and he did – initially with what appeared to be little regard for our amusement – just head down cutting and chewing away - but then with increased grins as he continued on his feast dutifully cleaning up all the steaks… 5 or 6 I think…I went to the meat section first the following day. I see him at our old wooden kitchen table, I see the knife and his head down, I see his grin with a mouthful, I hear that snort out of his nose as he laughed with his gob full…

Again

It happened again today. After a few 'quiet' days, that sense of loss and distance came back with tears and a thud. Ben is so far far away... The Proclaimers' song comes back to me "I would walk a thousand miles just to hear your voice again." So I listen to the recorded message from his mobile. Three times.

Blogger bashing

The ABC blog of the Atheist Convention has generated lots of interest and some 500 comments in the last few days. Most of the comments are vigorously anti-theistic, some amount to blogger bashing. Maybe 5% or less are from believers of one sort or another. Most of the arguments are neither new nor terribly well thought through.

Why did I take it on? Firstly to help make the idea of debate credible, because some atheists would like it to be a non-debate along the lines of, 'there's no proof for God so there's nothing to discuss.'

Secondly, I wanted to try and offer a serious and orthodox Christian response, because many atheists seem to think that such people (serious and orthodox Christians) don't exist. 

Finally, I hoped to couch the language in terms of belief and commitment, because many atheists say they don't have beliefs (at least about the God question). On that last point I wrote a post called Credo which tacitly makes it clear that atheists too have their set of beliefs.

The blog will go for another week or so...

Blogging the atheist convention

I've been looking forward to the Rise of Atheism for a long time. The
convention I mean... It is on this weekend in Melbourne and promises
to be a big affair. Richard Dawkins is the star attraction.

While I imagined a quiet weekend of soaking up the atmosphere it seems I
have now found myself a 'job'. I will be a guest contributor to the
ABC Religion blog that will cover the convention. You can find the
ABC blog here.

Tucuman slideshow

The young people in Tucumán made a slideshow for the church service they held the week after Ben died. We've now worked out how to put it on YouTube.

Unfortunately due to copyright restrictions pop-up advertisements may appear during the slideshow but they can be closed by clicking on the X box in the corner. Click on the following link to see the slideshow: Ben slideshow

Blog #150 - from Lindy

I have just been roaming through the blog. Enjoying the laughs. Loving the comments. Feeling encouraged by so many visitors and faithful returners.

I occasionally hear that the Blog has been a life-saver so to speak for someone going through something horrible. I am always surprised and so pleased.

Does the Blog still have a reason to keep going? We don’t want it to degenerate rather than finish cleanly.

It's hard to know.

Comments?

Whatever - from Lindy

Someone said the other day; "Have X and Y lost the plot? They were
talking to me as if Ben died last week!"

"He did" I replied, surprised that not everyone felt the same: today,
yesterday, last week. Forever.

Ben the living (not the 2D image), still screams out to me to remind
me that Ben - that young man forever carried around in my heart - is
not just a caricature or a memory or anything else. He is still Ben:
active, laughing, strong, thinking, private.

He told me that it 'pissed him off' that when he was conscious in ICU
we would all come in and hold his hand. I smile to remember it. As if
there were other ways left to us of making contact. Even when he was
conscious he had an oxygen mask over his face and in those last few
weeks his voice was weak and gravelly and it was hard to understand.

It was quite comical to combine his weak voice with our growing
hearing challenges. We often had a sibling interpreter to help us
along. Ben was so weak that to have to repeat what he said was worse
than anything. After he died Matt wanted to hear Ben's voice on his
mobile. He said how much he had hated Ben's sick voice ☹.

Anyway... Ben the living still speaks. Ben the man of 23 who was
nobody's puppet, nobody's fool and nobody's property, screams out to
be remembered. Not some namby-pamby 'beautiful son' which is of course
how mothers talk about their adult sons!

And as he nags at me to remember him, I was drawn more and more to a
song on a CD that blares out in the car as I drive along. The song is
'Whatever' and it's from an album that I love by Steven Curtis
Chapman, called 'Speechless'.

If you want to know how the real Ben, not the flat-daddy type Ben,
lived out his last few years of life at least, and stunningly and
passionately so as he got sicker and sicker, I think the words and the
style of this song says it. The lyrics are below and you can hear and
see it on YouTube here.

Whatever. Whatever. Whatever.

Let me know what you think.

"Whatever" by Steve Curtis Chapman

I made a list, wrote down from A to Z
All the ways I thought that You could best use me
Told all my strengths and my abilities
I formed a plan it seemed to make good sense
I laid it out for You so sure You'd be convinced
I made my case, presented my defense
But then I read the letter that You sent me
It said that all You really want from me is just

Whatever, whatever You say
Whatever, I will obey
Whatever, Lord, have Your way
'Cause You are my God, whatever

So strike a match, set fire to the list
Of all my good intentions, all my preconceived ideas
I want to do Your will no matter what it is
Give me faith to follow where You lead me
Oh, Lord, give me the courage and the strength to do ...

I am not my own
I am Yours and Yours alone
You have bought me with Your blood
Lord, to You and You alone do I belong
And so whatever

We have asked for permission to publish these lyrics on this page.

Try not to laugh with a mouthful of food... (thanks Von)

"Ben" - From Julia

Sallie had come home from the hospital earlier with James, the boys'
cousin, to watch a movie and try to relax. Why they chose Fight Club
I'll never know. I watched the first few scenes with them, the main
characters making their way through cancer support groups they
shouldn't be at, just for the hell of it. I wanted to fast forward but
Sal kept the remote plastered to her lap beneath her bowl of macaroni
cheese, her eyes focused on the screen as if the relevance of it was
necessary. There were big dark circles beneath her eyes and it wasn't
from her eyeliner.

Her phone rang: Chris. It was urgent. They left immediately and they
didn't say much. I sat on the couch, stopped the movie. The day was
still and so was I. The sun through the blinds left bright stripes
across the gray carpet and my jeans. I fiddled with the remote; it had
lots of different coloured buttons on it. The sunshine was hurting my
eyes.

Sometime later. Hours. The sun stripes no longer across my legs but up
the wall. A girlfriend, Nadia, rang me, her voice loud and sharp.
Sallie's facebook status says she Wasn't Ready To Say Goodbye, she
said. Has Ben died?

No, I said, too quickly. I would have received a text. Or would I? I
don't know why I assumed Tim would message me.

Are you home alone? Nadia asked.

Yes. But it's ok.

I forget sometimes how much Chris is like Ben. He picked up a raw
drumstick at a barbeque in their backyard last week and wiggled flabby
translucent chicken skin in Lindy's face. The hooting noises he was
making and the creases around his eyes looked so familiar. Lindy waved
his arm away with that scowl she gives her boys which isn't really a
scowl because the sides of her mouth turn slightly upwards and you
know it's because she loves them so much. Chris rolled his eyes and
threw the chicken on the barbeque.

I found out Ben and Andy had tried to surprise Sallie once with a
dishwashing machine, when she still lived in Carlton with me, in that
flat with the tiny kitchen. They had found it in the hard garbage,
carried it all the way from the street through the courtyard and up
onto the third floor, only to find it didn't fit under the bench - a
pipe from under the sink was blocking the way. So they had to carry it
all the way out and put it back on someone's nature strip. Ben was so
annoyed with himself for not having bothered to measure it up, and got
all huffy whenever we brought it up afterwards. But we didn't care.
But I've since learned that boys often don't get the whole "it's the
thought that counts" thing, they just want to get it right. But we
knew. They did get it right.

And so often I wonder: what in the world was so necessary, so needed,
that Ben was taken away so that something else could fit in? What
could possibly need that exact of space and air? Nothing seems big
enough to matter. A ferris wheel? Ben was so much bigger. A
skyscraper? A jumbo jet? My mind is weighed down with the uselessness
of these objects. The insignificance of things. There's a Ben-shaped
space in my lounge room where he used to sit, sometimes grumpy and
non-talkative, snorting loudly, spitting in our basin. A space where
air collided with big brown biceps and chunky thighs and settled into
dark hair and a crooked smile. Eyes with a bit of slant. Different
from Tim's wide green ones. Hands that held my housemate's in the
dark. Hanging up curtains as a surprise for Sal because of that weird
glass wall her bedroom had. He rang me up and asked me to measure the
glass with the length of a milk bottle as I had no measuring tape – he
found some curtains about ten milk bottles wide. Hands that made
Caesar salad with lots of bacon and cheese. That bought me an adidas
jumper with Sal as a consolation present while I was going through a
break up even though my ex was his best mate. Surely there was enough
air for us to breathe already that more didn't need to be made. That
space was already bursting with use and meaning and I still can't
quite work out how it got emptied so fast.

Being home alone wasn't ok. I did get a message from Tim, and I read
it, and my vision went blurry, and I was hyperventilating and started
crying really suddenly. And everything became a little surreal. I got
confused about what I should do, I could ring Sallie but she might
need space or she could need me but I didn't know what she needed, or
I could go to Stu's house but Stu might be at the hospital and he
might need space and maybe it would be strange and I was pretty sure
he didn't need me, and Meaghan was at work, and oh God what about
Lindy, and how could Ben be gone, when young people get cancer they
get better and when Christians get sick God heals them and how did
things come to this, it wasn't real, I felt sick, I put down the phone
and remembered Simon was coming over to pick up the Mallacoota forms
and the hyperventilating and crying didn't stop even after he arrived
and got out of his car and we didn't speak we just hugged and cried
right there on the street.

A few months ago, I was standing on the oval by the caravan park in
Mallacoota. I turned around and a big red van came roaring straight at
me across the grass. It didn't veer till the last second, but I stayed
still. My heart had thumped for a moment at the wide grin behind the
wheel but when the van turned back I realised that of course it was
Chris laughing at me, and that Ben must have learned to pull similar
pranks watching his dad. I cried a lot that night. But it makes me
smile lots now.

Mulherin boys redefine the words "blank stare." Are they hiding
something? I can't tell. I can't even imagine. To lose a brother? To
lose my brother? Those words fill me with panic and a nauseating sense
of incomprehension. Besides, what could I possibly do to relieve the
space that they have now, a far more important space, a space not only
of biceps and snorting and curtains but a whole history of Argentina
and childhood and pet cats and loving and living and trusting that I
know nothing about. What does it mean to go and study medicine when
the experience was supposed to be shared? What does it mean to lead a
beach mission? To find dishwashers in the hard garbage?

And what about losing my boyfriend? It's all nuanced differently. When
Stu and I broke up I had Sal and Ben to buy me presents but I'd also
made a choice. All Sal and Ben chose was to be together and even then
it all just ended one Monday morning. And Stu. To lose my best friend?
They die with your secrets and you still have theirs. Never to be
shared. Nowhere to go but inward.

On my way to Alice's 21st birthday party I burst into tears. I arrive
in tears. I am ushered into her room and given tissues for my tears.

Sorry Alice.

Yeah. That's right. You should be sorry for being sad about your dead
friend. He's alive in heaven, I want to say. Don't say dead, I want to
say. But I don't.

Back when I was just getting to know the gang Ben found my number and
rang me from Forest Hill and said I should come over because they were
just hanging around and it would be fun. Another day he rang me after
they'd all been to the movies and were having hot chocolate at
Brunetti and said I should drop around and say hello. He was always
the first to invite new people to things and, as his friends so often
comment, has a strange charisma that meant the new people usually came
along. It was great for beach mission and great for God.

I know I will be at a barbeque in the Mulherin's backyard soon. I'll
probably hurt myself jumping with Matt on the trampoline, he's bigger
and rougher than he used to be, and he's so proud of the flips he can
do when his mum's not looking, and Lindy might scowl, but who cares,
because like their son and their brother, they are always the first to
invite people into their home and their hearts, their arms open wide
enough for everyone to fit in.

And then there's Chris. And I think, Ben is here. Ben is here. It's
such a strange and vaguely inappropriate thing to tell parents - Guess
what, you remind me of the son you lost and that comforts me. As if
they could find comfort in themselves the way I see their baby boy in
them.

But I know he's not here-here. He's with his Father and I think, it's
a good thing to see so much of a son in his father. I think it is the
way of things.