It’s certainly been a mixed year for our (Bec and my) families this year. In November (though I chose not to mention it at the time), my paternal grandmother passed away. Dad gave an amazing effort at the funeral, giving a moving eulogy that was remarkably honest and very gutsy. She had been unwell for a long time leading up to that, and in lots of ways actually seemed in a much better place just before she died than she had for a while. The amazing story for me was hearing how as she was rushed into hospital late in the piece, coming through the emergency department and expressing sympathy for the poor people in emergency who were really doing it tough.
In a similar vein, Bec’s grandfather went from struggling with dementia to now not really able to function at all. Alzheimer’s Disease is a really scary thing, and it’s been really tough to see the human mind diminishing so rapidly. Val, Bec’s grandmother, is an amazing woman, and you couldn’t see anything but genuine love for her husband in the way she cares for Des – which blows me away. And to compound things, Bec’s Oma also moved into a nursing home as she gets frailer and older.
But there have been happier times as well. My little sister forsake the family name to become a Beever – marrying the man of her dreams and looking fantastic while doing it! I was lucky enough Neety to ask me to give the bible reading, so I even got my chance to get up on stage, so it was a big win all round. Stu’s a great guy, and it’s been a real winner getting to know him better – plus they moved quite close to where we are in Ringwood, which has been cool.
Speaking of moving closer, Mum and dad have bought a new house, and are moving closer to us, church and civilisation. It’ll be a nice move for them, but it’s a little bit devastating to be saying goodbye to the property in Gruyere. Just lucky we got the wedding reception there before they closed up shop. In other Mum and Dad related news, Dad just had his role at YVV reclassified – going from being “Church Administrator”, to becoming one of the pastors. It’s not quite as big a deal as it sounds, mostly just a recognition of what he’s already doing on staff rather than any big change, but I think it’ll be good for him to be a little more freed in taking on the spiritual aspects of the church’s life, as well as balancing the books and setting out chairs (that’s all you do at the moment isn’t it dad?)
I can’t write about this year without highlighting that my little brother was named at Ruck Rover for the premiership team in the Yarra Valley Mountain District first division Seniors. He was in and out of the side (which includes Gary Moorcroft and Ben Haynes – ex Essendon players) for most of the year, but played some ripper games in a tagging role late in the season to find himself an important part of the best team in the league. In lots of ways it has been a pretty good year for me and Mark. We’re very different people, and we’ve never been great at taking the relationship much deeper than we have to but along the way things seem to be gradually improving: we seem to keep having short times where we really talk about what’s going on in life, and when we choose to be around one another. I reckon the biggest thing has been realising that we both respect the other a lot more than we ever let on, because it seems that feeling that we don’t have the respect of our brother has been a bit of a trigger point.
OK – so that went longer than I set out for. Not sure how many of these “year in review” posts I’ve got left, but I’m enjoying them so you might just have to grin and bear it.
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