My Blue Room

We paid our last respects to a long-time friend last week. We met Doug and his wife Jay in ’95 when we first walked in to their sandwich shop, The Grapevine. Best Works Burgers ever!! As time went on we bonded on the subject of minerals. He was an avid “fossicker” (rockhound) and though he never thought he was even good enough at it to teach his daughter, he was a brilliant gem faceter. A big man with a gentle spirit and a ready smile, no visit to the Tablelands was complete without walking in the shop and seeing the flash in his eyes and the genuine excitement in his voice. “The Americans are here!”

His health had declined, but all he was worried about was getting a hip replacement so he could get out digging in the gem fields again. This with a valve in his heart leaking, among other things! But finding and faceting the hidden treasures of the earth was one of life’s most precious pastimes for Doug. He loved the Lord and was just ecstatic whenever he laid eyes on one of His crystal creations. He showed us all the gems he had faceted, including a gorgeous dark blue sapphire in a ring Jay wears.
They were so beautiful together. They had been married for 40 years or thereabouts (in fact at the wake I saw a picture of them together at Jay’s debutante ball!) and we never saw a trace of anxiety between them, only working together with a quiet oneness that’s hard to describe. He was the outgoing one, always welcoming and drawing people out from themselves with his warm humor. She was quiet, maybe a little more serious by nature, and no matter how long it had been since we were there last, she always remembered our names with a smile. How many, many times did she pass a plate over the counter, looking directly in my eyes like I was the most important person in the world. They moved together like two perfectly meshed gears. Their young daughters also became friends of ours as they took turns working with their parents. Now they’ve grown into beautiful young women with their own children.

We are so thankful that we were able to see him before this happened. Though my husband and son went to see him one more time after I did, my own last memory of him is captured in the photo I took as we left his house, Doug standing on the balcony with his granddaughter Morgan, saying goodbye to us while somehow showering her with adoration at the same time. Little did I know it would be the last time, but I could have gotten a clue from the fact that every other picture I took that day came out blurry. Jay told me he printed it out after I emailed it to him, laminated it and made it one of the coasters for daily use on the kitchen table (where he sat with those who came to visit). I was honored that it made one of the collages of photos the family hung up in the dining room of the pub where we gathered in his wake.
At the wake, her daughter Hayley said Mom, you’re so composed, I just don’t know how you’re holding it together. When we were singing “My Best Friend” at the end of the funeral I completely came apart, but there you were, singing with such calmness. She replied, Honey, I can still hear him singing with me. I blinked as the tears stung my eyes. She was glowing, radiantly beautiful as her new role as matriarch settled softly, comfortably around her shoulders. We sat in the midst of probably 200 people, friends and family who had traveled from all across Australia to say goodbye to Doug, yet Jay took the time to sit and share with me. Holding my hands and connecting firmly by a tunnel between our eyes, she took me on a journey of their marriage and memories that swept the activity around us away and silenced all other sound as their past together came to life in my mind. Such a moment… I will always be grateful that she gave my life such importance as to take that moment with me. This is what makes life rich, and she definitely changed me in that short span of time. Well, maybe not so short! There were people lining up to visit with her themselves by the time we became aware of our surroundings again. Coming back this time from HER blue room…For a second I felt terribly selfish until she took me in her arms and kissed me with a smile in her eyes. “Thank you, Hannah” Maybe it’s not just a gift they have, this making one feel so special. Maybe that moment really was as important for her as it was for me.


There is always more that can be said. We try to say it all, but how can we encapsulate the life of a man and all that he meant to us in mere words? His daughters did the best that can be done with the gift of poetic expression, another facet of the legacy Doug left them:
Hayley wrote…

I was shocked on Friday morning when the sun came up. I wondered how it could have the audacity to do such a thing; to reinforce that this loss is real. It is this reality that makes us aware of the love that we had for Dad and the love he had for us.

As a husband, father and pop, he was second to none. Dad never gave us advice on how to be good parents; he didn’t have to. Cindy, Dean and I do not have to worry about ever needing parenting advice from Dad. He did his job in educating us so well that we already have the entire parenting map in our heads just from growing up in our house.
Sunday mornings meant Dad cooking breakfast with Charley Pride on the record player. Birthdays often meant on one of Dad’s hilarious poems scribbled on whatever was on the table at the time. His ability to find humor in any situation has always made our house a happy one. Making his grandkids smile was paramount to Dad. For them he has defined what laughter is.

The marriage that Mum and Dad have enjoyed had shown us all not only how to love but how to be loved. I thank Mum for so freely sharing him with us.

We could not have asked more from Dad. He has always given us more than required. He has enriched our lives and left us with all we need to continue on.

And still, the sun keeps coming up.