What would you being doing now? Five long years today...

Hightop homage

From the private files of Meaghan—used with permission

At the intersection of Drummond and Pelham streets in Carlton, there is a roundabout.

Soon after Ben died an excellent collection of sneakers developed, hanging from the power lines above the roundabout.  

Neon Nike hightops

Crisp white Adidas

Blue and orange Tigers,

Spinning slowly to display their glory.

In my private thoughts, the growing collection was homage to Ben.

A blast (or jump) from the past: Ben at Mallcoota Theos earlier this century

Come on. Hurry up!

Musings received from a friend who is a nurse:

I like Alice's idea  that "maybe he is here rallying us to do something, somewhere." I often find myself thinking 'I wonder how Ben would react to this situation?' In some ways he is my every patient, challenging me to provide the best care I can for my patients; as though by doing so I can honour his memory. He is far from forgotten.

When I read comments about him partying in heaven, I have an image of a great mass of people, moving towards God and an image of Ben amongst the crowd. I can see him running forward, determined to reach the goal as soon as he can, uncaring whether others walk or run. His eyes are set.

Watching him go before me, with anticipation and determination, both when he was here in this life and now in my imaginings of him there, in that other, better life have been a great encouragement and great reminder.

That's my most recent memory of Ben. Still leading the way.

Happy Birthday Ben (again)

It was Ben’s birthday on Saturday-24th August, he would have turned 28.

We had plenty of Ben's friends and family over to celebrate again this year. It’s five years since Ben was at one of his birthday celebrations and a lot has changed. What hasn’t changed is how much we miss him.

Happy Birthday Ben.

Again (again)

We were at a party the other day and The Proclaimers’ "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" was pumped out by the proficient and enjoyable band of the night. We don’t usually hear ‘500 miles’ played and it propelled us back to our first hearing of it.

It was Ben who introduced it to us. He returned from participating in a team adventure challenge somewhere in the Victorian high country- he must have been in Year 11 at school- singing the song with gusto. He then bought (and played with plenty of volume) ‘Sunshine on Leith’, the CD with ‘500 miles' on it.

Back at the party, a few songs after ‘500 miles’, ‘Viva la Vida’  by Cold Play was played. We were pretty overwhelmed with ‘if onlys’ and ‘surely it didn’t really happens'.

On the way home from the party, Chris said that he had written about the same Proclaimers song on the blog and so I looked it up:

Friday, March 19, 2010

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.

Practical advice for well-wishers

I feel mortified when I think of the ‘helpful’ things I have said—albeit well intentioned—to people over the years.

I know from being a bereaved parent and being involved in a bereaved parents’ group, that it is very hard to say the ‘right’ thing to people in great pain and it’s all too easy to say something that can highlight the sense of loneliness of the grief journey.

The truth is, that often anything we say, will be wrong, or at least not ‘right’.

The following is an excerpt from an article in ‘A Journey Together,’ which is a newsletter put out by Bereaved Parents USA. It outlines a way of thinking about grief which can help us, the well intentioned, to avoid saying hurtful or even harmful things.

The same theme came up again when our friend Katie had a brain aneurysm. She was in intensive care for a long time and finally got out and into a step-down unit. She was no longer covered with tubes and lines and monitors, but she was still in rough shape. A friend came and saw her and then stepped into the hall with Katie’s husband, Pat. “I wasn’t prepared for this,” she told him. “I don’t know if I can handle it.”

This woman loves Katie, and she said what she did because the sight of Katie in this condition moved her so deeply. But it was the wrong thing to say [to Katie’s husband, suffering more deeply]… Susan has since developed a simple technique to help people avoid this mistake. It works for all kinds of crises: medical, legal, financial, romantic, even existential. She calls it ‘Ring Theory’.

The whole article is called ‘Practical Advice’ by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman. It is on page 4 of the Summer 2013 BP/USA newsletter which you can download as a pdf here.

Whatever (again)

Steve Curtis Chapman's song 'Whatever' has been thumping around in my head and I looked back at the blog entry about it in 2010 (here), and thought I might post it, slightly altered, again.

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.

And while the years keep rolling on, 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.

And as he nags at me to remember him, as he was, I am  drawn once again, to a song on a CD called 'Speechless'  by Steven Curtis Chapman. The song is 'Whatever'.

If you want to know how the real Ben lived out his last few years of life and the strength of his belief, 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" 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.

Truly, madly, deeply

Tim and Olivia’s wedding was a beautiful and significant occasion where although Ben was physically absent, he seemed to be with us.

Olivia knew Ben well and suggested to Tim that a tribute be made to him during their marriage ceremony. Tim delivered it something like this:

For those of you who don’t know, Ben was my older brother—20 months older than me. Ben got cancer and died quite suddenly in 2008.

With no offence to my groomsmen, Ben would have been my best man had he been alive today.

Ben was known for his taste in very good quality music so we thought the best way to include him in the service would be to choose one of his favourite songs to play during the signing of the registry.

It only took the first two notes of Savage Garden’s ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ to sound and the church, full of hundreds who knew and loved Ben, laughed—with some tearfulness—almost as one.

We found ourselves wondering whether the playing of this song might not just do the trick and call him back from his ‘better party’, even if only momentarily.

More remembering

A friend of Ben’s sent us this message a few weeks ago:

Yesterday I worked on the bone marrow transplant ward and
was taking care of a girl who was one year older than me and
battling breast cancer. Her bravery and nonchalant attitude
reminded me a lot of Ben.

It really was remarkable the way he dealt with it. For someone
who was so good at living, he did an amazing job at dying. That
sounds terrible, but I hope you know what I mean.

While I still grapple with God's purpose in allowing his death, I
really am so grateful I got to meet Ben. He was a man who will
continue to challenge me about what is real and good and true.

--------
Next Saturday Ben will miss Tim's wedding to Olivia. And we will miss his presence at such an occasion. As Stu said at his wedding a few weeks ago, "Ben has a better party to be at."

Living in the fast lane

Matt and I with Tim and Olivia, were in a multi-storey Wilson car park in the city the other day after having seen Gladys play in a concert at The Edge in Fed Square.

We were on foot, returning to Tim’s car, when a car came hurtling down a ramp towards us, driving far too fast for a car park. I was feeling like a grumpy old woman about it, when I noticed that the driver was a young bloke with a satin vest and bow tie on.

He was, in fact one of those valet car parking attendants and his name might well have been Ben Mulherin a few years ago.

We all agreed that if it had have been Ben as the valet, he would have been driving that fast but, said Tim, it would have been more likely that he would have been reversing down the ramp.

Lindy

In response to the last blog entry, a good friend of Ben’s, Alice, wrote that she loved the image of Ben’s experience ‘up there’ being one of partying and general hi-jinks. She says,

I feel like Ben will have fitted in to that "party all the time" way of life better than most. More than anyone I ever knew, he had a capacity for endless fun times. On our way back from Mallacoota [where a group of 20 or so, spent two weeks organising and running the Theos drop-in centre, activity program for youth each January], I still remember him rallying people to "do something, somewhere" when frankly all I could think of was a shower and my bed.

But of course we always did do "something, somewhere" until the wee hours of the morning. I often find myself wishing he were here rallying us to do something… 

But then maybe he is...?

Stu and Julia, good friends of Ben’s, were married yesterday.

Ben seemed to be with us all day—and yet at the same time so dreadfully not with us.

In his speech later in the evening, Stu spoke of Ben and how he had been involved in both their lives. He said, "Ben couldn’t be with us today, because he has a better party to be at."

Stu and Ben in their 'youth'

That reminds me of a dream another of his friends told me about. In her dream Ben told her not to be worried about him because he was better than fine. I remember too, a mother at the hospital who wrote me a text soon after Ben had died saying she hoped he was giving them plenty of trouble ‘up there’—that same kind of idea of high spirits and incomparable good times.

So while we muck around here, where energy flags and fun can seem a little faded at times, we think of Ben somewhere else, where colours are brilliant beyond imagining and where drum beats and music and partying go on forever.