Dear Ellen,
Last year my family suffered a irreplaceable loss. Our Grandfather, Laurie Newman, lost his courageous battle with lung cancer. And when I say courageous, I mean right down to the bone stubborn, faced down the biggest challenge of his life with that sense of humor that all that new him new and, like all who ever met Pa, loved. This man was everybody's father, everybody's grandfather and he would treat all equal despite our mixed ideas and shortcomings. Once you made that transition from 'friend' to 'family' you were destined to stay there, even if he could never quite remember your name.
Standing right next to pa during his battle were his three children Colin, Carol and Barbara (who is my Mum). Each of his kids and his grand kids had to all come to terms with the fact that this illness was, inevitably going to be the thing that brought him undone. We are talking about a man who, the day after having a massive heart attack, was released from hospital and pushing a trailer around the front yard - in his 70's!! Tough. My mother, who lives on the isolated Island - Kangaroo Island - where Pa has called home for the past up teem years took on the roll of - translator, Councillor, nurse, driver, confider, spokes person, bad news bearer, good news bearer - well you get the idea. Over the two and a half years that Pa was sick Mum was right there, in the scary moments, the panicked moments, the private moments, the proud moments, the funny moments and the darkest moments. For that our family is so completely thankful to her. She pushed her life aside, pushed being a daughter aside and grabbed the bull by the horns, so to say to help guide Pa through his journey. Now my mother has survived cancer. Twice. And the last time she was sick, she was sick. As sick as Pa was. Me and my brother were terrified to lose our mother. So she knew a thing or two about what Pa was living through. And, 10 years later the stubborn woman is thankfully still here! (love ya guts Mum x)
Now us Newman's are a family of survivors. I won't go to far into it but believe me, we pull through, every time. And we do not need money (well we all need money but we all make do and get by) we have enough of what we need. But if possible we could all use a hand in a little project that was inspired by our Pa.
Cancer leaves you feeling helpless and hopeless. It is such a dark, negative force and honestly it scares the shit out of me. If I hear the word, I instinctively hold my breath. It has played such a big part in my life for so many years. Now I don't like feeling like this.
So I decided to do something positive, before Pa passed away, something to keep me busy and feel like I was contributing something positive in a hopeless time. I proudly told Pa, I'm gonna ride my horse from one town to another and raise money. He laughed, shook his head and for the one millionth time told me "why waste your time with those horses?" My standard answer "They make me happy". Then, much too soon Pa passed away. I am dealing with my grief with action. My action is called "The Cowell To Cummins Trek" and will see me ride three horses (one at a time of course, I mean I'm clever but not THAT clever) through a town called Cowell through to Port Lincoln and up to Cummins (all which can be found on google maps) on the lovely Eyre Peninsula, where I have lived for the past six years all in memory of Pa. We drove the 'trek' the other day and it's amounts too 255kms, which is less than we thought it was! We made a decision to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service which is, well as it says it's a medical plane equipt with a doctor. For us in isolated areas (or the country or bush as we Aussies call it) they are a service that we just could not do without. The thing about the RFDS is that they are not Government funded, they run solely on money raised for them by the community's. Everywhere.
Like I said, we don't need money but these guys do. If you could in anyway help us in our mission to raise $10,000 for the RFDS, I would be so thankful. Because apparently getting myself and three horses super fit, organizing events and trying to drum up sponsors is a HUGE amount of work. Lucky I have such a great team standing with me. But I won't go into that right now because I think I have taken long enough to get to the point but believe me - these people rock! And you can read back on my blog to learn all about them.
We can be found on Facebook (Cowell to cummins trek) or Twitter (Cowell2Cummins).
Thank you for your time Ellen and thank you for helping to keep the smile on my face
On behalf of the Newman Family
Ebony Newman
No comments:
Post a Comment