Plinky Prompt: What Can't You Throw Away?

Casino Royale Poker Chip

There are plenty of things that people can’t throw away, or don’t want to throw away. I too have items of sentimental value that I would hate to part with. I also have things that I would hate to part with that are’t really of sentimental
value, but still are important to me for one reason or another.

The sentimental items though are not always items I have a lot of use for in practical terms – generally they mean a lot to me because of the people from whom they have come.

One such item that is very important to me is a ‘chip’ I received during a visit to a casino of all places, in Sydney, when I went there with Rebecca several years ago. Rebecca died almost three years ago, so this chip has special meaning to me as a reminder of both Rebecca and the trip to Sydney that we enjoyed together. I have made it into a keyring and it is always with me.

What's My Favorite Summer Memory?

Summer is a great time of the year – I love it. Summer has generally been the best time for getting into the Great Outdoors and exploring Australia. Summer has brought me many great memories – so many that it is hard to place one as being THE favorite summer memory. However, there is one summer memory that means more to me now than a lot of others, for one particular reason. It was in a November (summer in Australia) a few years ago now, that I traveled to Gloucester Tops with Bec and we enjoyed the bush, the river and the waterfalls together. It was a special time. It is even more special to me now because Bec died 2 years ago (June 25) and this is one of the greatest memories I have and times I spent with her. It was a great day I will never forget.

WELCOMING 2009

With the passing of the year 2008 and the beginning of 2009, I am looking forward to what I hope is a much better year than the one just finished. It would be very easy for me to simply look on 2008 as a year to forget (if I could), given the many difficulties that I had to pass through during the year.

Among the most difficult events of the year was my near fatal car accident in February 2008. I have been recovering from that accident for the entire year and still have a way to travel until I can again be confident that I am as fully fit as I can expect to be. Yet even here, I can be thankful that I wasn’t killed and that I have been able to return to work, am approaching a condition in which I should not be affected to greatly in the long term as a result of the accident, etc.

My greatest loss in 2008 was that of my dear friend Rebecca in June. She was my dearest friend whom I loved greatly. I have missed her every day since she died and will never forget her. This was the tragedy of 2008 for me, far surpassing the car accident and anything else that happened. Her death left me shattered and it is a blow from which I will never fully recover. Yet it was a tremendous privilege to have been given the opportunity to know her at all and to count her as my dearest friend for as long as I was able to do so is something I will forever be thankful for. Thank you Rebecca for giving me a place in your heart and in your life – I was blessed for knowing you.

There have been financial difficulties also from which I am beginning to emerge and I think this has been for the good, even through the immediate hardships that resulted. They will be for my good for the rest of my life and I look forward to the continuing recovery ahead.

2009 has the promise of a rebuilt life and that of continuing personal reformation which excites me as much as it will challenge me. When I left my previous employment in 2007 I thought the rest of my life was about to begin and a second chance presented itself. However, 2008 has been a continuance of that transition period and 2009 may well be the beginning of my second chance at life – so to speak.

I know I ended 2007 feeling very relaxed and contented with where I was at that exact moment and the ride ahead is something I look forward to. I have an agenda of personal reform, life changes and interests to pursue throughout 2009 – I now go ahead seeking to fulfil them as best I can.

Unlike New Years’ resolutions, I can have the confidence that progress can be made in these areas without the fear of simply failing to achieve what I have set out to do. With the Spirit of God operational in my life I have a living force that is more powerful than any of the obstacles that I can foresee and that I will in time confront. By the grace of God I can go on. Praise be to Him – I know my Redeemer lives!!!

GLOUCESTER TOPS TRIP WITH REBECCA: 20th November 2006

Back on the 20^th November 2006 I went on a day trip with Bec to Gloucester Tops and the Gloucester River Falls. This is the best memory I have of my time spent with Rebecca (Rebecca died in June 2008) – my dearest friend.

Below is a file that contains a brief record of my trip with Rebecca and it is dedicated to her memory:

http://www.kevinswilderness.com/NSW/Gloucester Tops with Bec.exe

REBECCA HAS BEEN GONE FOR THREE MONTHS

Yesterday (September 25, 2008) marked three months since the tragic death of my dearest friend – Rebecca.

I still miss you Rebecca and always will.

My tribute to Rebecca can be found below:

http://respectance.com/Rebecca_Therese_Morris

MISSING MY FRIEND

My friend died in late June and I still find it difficult to believe that she is gone. It’s probably more likely that I simply miss her I think. In circumstances like this you tend to think about an event or events that took place in the past – a special happening or something like that.

Something that happened with Bec has been on my mind the last couple of days. Every so often Bec would feel a little down – sometimes more than a little down. On this particular occasion she was feeling more than a little worthless – as though she had no value and no reason to feel she had any.

Now as usual, she was wide of the mark on this particular subject. Bec had heaps of value and worth, and I often thought she had more than I. But that is something that was known only to Bec and I – the whole worth and value discussion/s. I have no intention of revealing all of that, but enough to say we had plenty of discussions revolving around the subject which we both appreciated and dare I say it, valued.

So there was this one time when I had been speaking to her on the phone and via text messages – and it was fairly late at night. Bec was a little down and I didn’t want her to stay that way so I thought a little about what I could do. I had a history with Bec of doing silly little things to cheer her up, etc. So this sort of thing wasn’t unusual. Anyhow, I came up with a plan and set about to put it in place.

I knew Bec was going to work the next day so I wanted to do something that she would discover when she headed off to work – to make sure she went to work much happier.

So what could I do???  Well, I collected a whole heap of short garden stakes and made a whole heap of little signs that I tacked to the stakes. Each sign had a little message on it about what I valued about Bec and how much worth I felt she had. There must have been about 30 signs I suppose.

So off I drove to Bec’s place with my signs. Bec’s car was parked on the street as usual and her bedroom window was on the side of the house nearest the car. So the mission had to be a quiet one.

I parked the car up the street a bit and quietly wandered down to Bec’s place with the signs. I then placed them from the gate down to her car, so she would have to see each of them – all over the place on the way down to the car.

Anyhow, to cut a long story short – Bec of course found the signs the next morning and rang me, thanking me for the gesture. It was only a silly little thing that I did, but it meant a lot to Bec and she held onto the signs, keeping them under her bed. It just gave her something to always look at when she felt a little down about her value and worth.

I know it was nothing extremely special and it didn’t cost a lot of money – but it doesn’t always have to be about money. It was about how I felt about Bec and she really valued that. It was just something special that we both shared and always remembered. It meant something to us both, as did other similar experiences that we shared – working both ways.

I miss her.

REBECCA THERES MORRIS: 1984 – 2008

My dearest friend is gone, having died in her sleep on Wednesday morning the 25^th June 2008. I am finding it incredibly hard to believe she is gone and that I can’t see or speak to her again. She was my dearest friend and the most important person in my entire life. It is hard to find words to describe the ache that I feel in my heart and mind and the massive void Rebecca’s death will leave in my life. She meant so much to me and she will always mean so much to me – what an amazing privilege it was for me to have known this incredible girl with the endearing and enduring smile.

I first met Rebecca in about January 2004 at Hawkins Masonic Village. It was her first job in nursing I believe and fuelled within her a desire and a passion for being a nurse. She had the respect of her fellow staff members immediately and engaged us all with her determination to be the very best nurse she could be, along with her wholehearted empathy for those she cared for. Even from these early days in her nursing career Rebecca showed qualities that proved the potential that was within her to be a great nurse, as well as a great person. Sadly we have been left without the quality nurse and person she would most certainly have become.

In those early days of 2004 Rebecca attended one of my fire safety lectures at Hawkins Masonic Village and I remember the attention she gave and that smile that emblazoned the room. She was a beautiful young woman who personified happiness in a very real and personal manner. Her desire for life and joy of living was captured in the smile that adorned her face in those first moments that I experienced the pleasure that was knowing my friend Rebecca.

I did not set out to become a friend of Rebecca’s, yet it was the overtures of her bubbly friendliness that drew me towards her and destined me to having a friend that I will cherish for the rest of my days. Though a friendship I did not immediately seek, her friendship soon became one that I would never want to part with and she soon became the most important person in my life.

At that very time when I met Rebecca I would have been quite happy to have signed out of life. I wanted the earth to stop spinning so I could step off and it was quite within the realm of possibility that I would have done so. Rebecca saved me and returned to me a desire to go on living. Her engaging personality enabled me to see the possibilities of life once again and we soon became close friends.

As the closest of friends with the greatest regard for each other, we still had our differences and difficulties as friends. Yet beneath the sometimes tumultuous circumstances of our friendship there was nothing that could separate us as friends. We were there for each other and life’s troubles became the melting pot for a life long friendship that would mean the world to me and more.

There were many times when Rebecca came to me for support through the greatest of personal difficulties and it was the same the other way as well. Our bond was cemented in the fires of hardship and a friendship forged that would endure all things cast in our way.

There was so much more to Rebecca then her smile and seemingly perpetual happiness. She struggled with what life threw at her, yet she never gave up. There were many great personal battles fought and many still being fought. She had her demons as we all do, yet it was a testimony to the quality of who Rebecca was that she continued to be a young woman who made an impact on all her knew her for good. There was potential in Rebecca to be far more than she already was and I looked forward to seeing that develop from the bud into full bloom. How tragic it is that the developing flower has been plucked at such an early stage in her development as a person. What a wonderful woman she would have become. Rebecca Morris was there in development and the fruit of who she was was beginning to be known by those who knew her best.

Rebecca was a star in the making, as well as being a star already. I have known no-one else that could be what Rebecca was and what she was becoming. Greatness loomed in the being of my friend and I longed to see her come out of the shadows and be seen in all her glory, to be known for who she truly was without the fears that so often plagued her inner peace and being.

I thank God I knew her and for what I could see beginning to form beneath the surface and for the future life she would live. Now I am heartbroken by the fact that my friend’s life has been so tragically cut short. My sorrow rends my heart and crushes my spirit. All I want to do is somehow fix everything and bring her back, but this time I cannot do it. The desire is more than there but the ability is greatly lacking. I have no power, no words, no nothing that can bring my friend back to me, to her friends and her family. I am so devastated by the loss of my friend and my heart’s sorrow cannot be silenced or stopped.

Time may ease the felt pain of my sorrow, but it will not remove the void that can never be filled by another. Rebecca was my friend and I will never forget her. She meant the world to me and continues to do so. I cannot forget her and I will not.

How much those times I spent with her are now to be guarded and embraced as cherished and precious moments which time will never prize from my heart and mind. They have become Rebecca to me and I will go to them when I need to spend time with her again. You will always be with me as long as I cherish these memories and I will never forget to do so, for I can never forget you.

Rebecca, you were my friend and I will never forget what you meant to me and who you were. My friend, forever. Thank you for being so.