Looking through Trenna’s iPad I came across the document she wrote to review/record the Black Sabbath concert we went to along with a friend, Adrian. It was the first time I had read this piece since 2016.
It immediately brought back memories of a really fab night. I also found some of the turns of phase pretty entertaining.
I will put her writing below, in the main body of this post but also … Read the rest ... “Moshing With Black Sabbath!”
by Greg
This is a list of some of the strategies Trenna adopted to try to cope with life and her many medical issues. She didn’t have a specific list of these items. This is just the things I remember us trying.
I’m expecting (hoping?) that this post might be helpful to people living with chronic disease, and their carers. But of course everyone’s situation is different.
For most of her life she was … Read the rest ... “Marfan and Other Chronic Conditions – Things That Worked for Trenna”
[GM: As the title suggests, this was the fourth of 24 recordings done at our kitchen bench in Kensington, Western Australia. As part of the preparation for putting it on this website, in February 2022, I asked our friend Helen to read through this transcript and the one from 7 June 2018. Below you will find some of Helen’s comments interspersed. My thanks to Helen for doing that.]
GM: OK, so it’s the … Read the rest ... “The Fourth Kitchen Tape”
A quick note before you start. If you have read the “About” page of this website you can ignore this particular post as the contents is the same as on that page. If that’s you, just scroll down.
You will learn a lot about Trenna as you go through the material on this website. However, if you aren’t already familiar with Trenna here is a quick primer to … Read the rest ... ““Please allow me to introduce myself…””
GM: This is a recording of Trenna Mahney made on the 12th of April, 2018. Tren, let’s talk about the time you lived down near the Old Mill.
THM: Alright, OK, well that was 1975. I was heading to being 17, 18. I had been living previously with some of the girls I had met from GFS. I eventually had to move because my friend Rose’s mum … Read the rest ... “The Third Kitchen Tape”
In November 2016 my then employer, Advocare Inc, gave me the opportunity to go to a mediation conference in Wellington, New Zealand.
Travel was becoming increasingly difficult for Trenna. Her eyesight was very bad and her pain management was not going well. We knew that the long flight from Perth in Western Australia to Auckland and then down to Wellington would take its toll.
On the other hand it really … Read the rest ... “The Wellington Earthquake”
Trenna became aware at some point around 2010 that she was getting out of the house less and less – it was often pretty hard. But she didn’t want to lose touch with the city in which she lived. And she wanted some recreation and a change of scenery.
So, she invented the “Recce-Vite”. She was using French words to describe a quick look around somewhere.
A recce-vite was … Read the rest ... “The Recce-Vite”
GM: OK we’re recording. It’s the 10th of April 2018.
THM: Right. We’re back at Mofflyn Homes, some more things have come to my memory.
In our cottage the older children looked after the younger children. They had responsibilities.
Younger children had to be bathed by someone. I know that we shared bath water, which was a common thing to do in those days, so it’s no big deal. … Read the rest ... “The Second Recording”
On 15 January 2021 a celebration of Trenna’s life was held. I wanted to hand out a postcard which had a picture of Trenna and a couple of links to a playlist I developed after Trenna passed away a few weeks earlier. I then put up a Facebook post to help people to click through to the playlist.
That Facebook post appears below and I have embedded the Youtube Playlist and the Spotify below.
Below is the eulogy I delivered at the Celebration of Trenna’s Life (her funeral). In due course I will do another post explaining what I wanted to achieve from the event and how friends and family helped me to organise it.
One of Trenna’s sisters, Nancy also gave a eulogy, as did Trenna’s friend, Helen. I will be publishing their words in the near future.
It is, of … Read the rest ... “Eulogy”
[GM: This recording of 9 April 2018 was the very first in a series of 24 recordings]
THM: The nineteen sixties were a decade of huge change for me and … for the world.
“…so my childhood was in some ways idyllic, in some ways terrible. I didn’t know the difference between the two”
My family had started to disintegrate. I began to have my own memories of my … Read the rest ... “The First Recording”
Trenna always liked to tell a story. She knew that her life story was interesting and that some people could find comfort in hearing how she coped with what life threw at her.
We had talked about it for a long time and in April 2018 Trenna asked if we could record her tales. We didn’t have a firm view on what we would do with them. A … Read the rest ... “The Kitchen Tapes”
This post is a simple one, but to Trenna and I the following was important.
In May 2017 Trenna wrote the PDF document that appears below. The formatting was as she wrote it on her iPad. The font size she used was large to help her read it.
The distinctive colour was to help her find it on her iPad when the document was minimised.
As far as I can … Read the rest ... “Living With Your Spouse”